Anthology of Russian literature from the earliest period to the present time

ANTHOLOGY OF
RUSSIAN LITERATURE

From the
Earliest Period
to the Present
Time

BY

LEO WIENER

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

IN Two PARTS
8* with Photogravure Frontispieces

PART I.— From the Tenth Century to the Close of the
Eighteenth Century

PART II.— The Nineteenth Century

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON

Anthology of Russian
Literature

From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

By

Leo Wiener

" In days of doubt, in days of anguished thought over
the fate of my native land, you alone are my staff and
my support, O great, mighty, true and free Russian
language! Were vit jiot for . .%pp+ how could one help
despairing at the sight of what is taking place at home ?
But it is unthinkable that such a language should not be
given to a great natioRART II

TURG£NEV.
The Nineteenth Century

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and I

Ube Imicherbocfter press
1903

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Anthology of Russian
Literature

From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

By

Leo Wiener

Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

IN TWO PARTS

PART II
The Nineteenth Century

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

Ube Ifcntcfeerbocfeer press

1903

PREFACE

/""CONSIDERATIONS of space compel ine to give but
\^j a small selection of authors from the last two dec-
ades of the nineteenth century, while some of the writers,
here omitted, of the beginning of this period have been
previously treated in the first volume of the Anthology.
For the intermediate time, the material here offered will be
found sufficiently complete, while the essays of Byelinski,
Dobrolyubov, Pfsarev, and Merezhkovski illustrate the evo-
lution of Russian literature in the nineteenth century, as
viewed by the Russian critics themselves.

The introductory sketch is not intended as a preliminary
exposition of the Anthology, but as a resume of all the mat-
ter contained there; it will, therefore, be best perused after
the extracts and biographical sketches of the separate authors
have become familiar to the reader. To avoid undue anno-
tations, literary allusions have not been mentioned in the
footnotes; they may readily be discovered by turning to the
Index, where all cross references are given.

During the preparation of the second volume, the interest-
ing discovery was made that not Sir John Bowring, but
William D. Lewis, an American, was the first to render
Russian poetry into English ; thus, the Stanzas given on p.
394 of vol. i. originally appeared in the National Gazette
and Literary Register of Philadelphia, on January 31, 1821,
while other poems seem to have been translated by him
much earlier.

I again wish to express my thanks to the authors and pub-
lishers by whose permission translations are here reproduced,
and to my colleague, Prof. F. N. Robinson, who has patiently
read through these pages and given me his advice.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE T

A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH

CENTURY i

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 25

Karamzin (1766-1826) 27

Letters of a Russian Traveller 28

Tver 28

On the French Tragedy ...... 30

On Shakspere 31

London 32

The Churchyard 33

^ Poor Liza 34

' *- History of the Russian Empire. Introduction . . 37

Kryl6v (1768-1844) 41

The Ass and the Nightingale 41

The Quartette 43

D ami ati 's Fishsoup 44

The Swan, the Pike, and the Crab 45

The Lion and the Wolf 45

The Cloud 46

The Shipwrecked Sailor and the Sea .... 46

Izmdylov (1779-1831) 46

The Drunkard's Vow 47

The Canary and the Nightingale 47

The Two Cats 48

Narye*zhny (1780-1825) 49

The Two Ivdns ; or, The Passion for Litigation . . 49

Zhuk6vski (1783-1852) 54

Svyetldna 55

The Minstrel in the Russian Camp 63

Kozl6v (1779-1840) 67

Solitude . 68

Kiev ...'....... 69

The Black Monk 70

x Contents

PAGE

Obl6mov 260

Dobrolyubov( 1836-1861) 271

What is Obl6movism ? 272

Turge"nev (1818-1883) 280

Fathers and Sons 282

Poems in Prose. Nature 295

Grigor6vich (1822-1900) 296

The Fishermen 297

X, Pol6uski (1820-1898) . . . . . . . -303

The Birds 303

Night in the Crimea 304

Love scared thee not 305

Musician Grasshopper 305

Pisemski (1820-1881) 310

The Old Proprietress 311

)f Shenshin (Fet) (1820-1892) 319

When deeply musing in the silence of the night . . 320
Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and

deeper 320

Stay here awhile, 'tis good 321

Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong . 321

Tryst ' 322

Dostoevski (1821-1881) 322

Crime and Punishment 323

A. N. Mdykov (1821-1898) 339

The Peris 340

Who Was He? 341

The Marble Faun 342

Three Deaths. The Death of Seneca and of Lucius . 344
X. Nekrasov (1821-1877) • • • » • • 347

Red-nosed Frost 348

A Moral Man 352

Who Lives in Russia Happily 353

The Unmown Strip . 359

A Mother's Tears 360

Nikitin (1824-1861) 361

Burldk 361

The Gaffer 364

Pleshche'ev (1825-1894) 365

Forward 366

My Country ......... 367

A Legend ^ . . .367

Spring 368

Ostr6vski (1823-1886) 369

Contents xi

PAGE

The Storm 369

Saltyk6v (Shchedrin) (1826-1889) 379

Beyond the Border 380

Pisarev (1841-1868) 385

Flowers of Harmless Humour 386

Count Iv. N. Tolst6y (1828- ) 391

Anna Kare"nin 392

War and Peace 401

Uspe"nski (1840-1902) 408

The Power of the Land. Ivan Petr6v .... 409

LrCVltOV (1842-1877) 417

Shoemaker Cock-of-the-Boots 417

Zlatovrdtski (1845- ) 427

Old Shadows 428

Korole"nko (1853- ) 436

The Old Bell-ringer 437

Garshin (1855-1888) 443

That Which Was Not 443

Potdpenko (1856- ) 44§

A Thousand Talents 448

Nadson (1862-1887) 457

My Friend, My Brother ! 458

Poetry 45»

Pity the stately cypress trees 459

Chekhov (1860- ) 459

In the Court-room 460

Pyeshk6v (G6rki) (1871- ) 467

In the Steppe 468

Merezhk6vski (1865- ) 482

From an Essay on "Pushkin" 483

INDEX 495

A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY

A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY

WERE we to compare English literature to the starred
heavens with their galaxies and their permanent con-
stellations of varying magnitudes, Russian literature would
represent itself to us as the darkling sky which is now il-
lumined by the refracted glamour of the aurora borealis, now
by the illusive flashes of shooting meteors, and now again
by the steadier brilliancy of some errant comet, by the side
of which stars seem pale and insignificant. In England, as
with the other great nations of the West, there have been
temporary suspensions of literary activities, but with every
new unshrouding the ancient combinations gleam forth in
the azure vault in untarnished brilliancy, even though new
stars may obtrude themselves to view. Not thus in Russia.
After every short period of celestial fireworks the heavens
are suddenly merged into palpable darkness, to dazzle us
once more with an entirely new display of unwonted splen-
dour.

Such, at least, is the aspect Russian literature bears in the
nineteenth century. Though Pushkin's poetry was naturally
the crowning glory of the incipient reign of Nicholas I., it
bears but a faint resemblance to the lacrimose verses of
Karamzin, or to the elegant imitations and patriotic ebulli-
tions of Zhukovski of the previous two decades, and yet
Karamzin lived till Pushkin reached man's estate, while
Zhukovski was still active after his death. Pushkin and
his contemporaries are classed separately from L,ermontov,

3

4 A Sketch of Russian Literature

though but fifteen years lie between their births and only
four between their deaths. No new division is made for
poetry since the days of Lermontov, though in the light of
Nekrdsov's realism, who began writing in 1848, the poets
of pure art, Maykov, Polonski, Tyutchev, Fet,— all of them
born long before Pushkin's demise, — were reviled by the
democratic critics and suffered more or less complete oblivion
after the fifties. Still more pathetic is the fate of Vyazeinski
who, reared in the school of Karamziu, had the misfortune
of surviving to a vigorous old age: he bitterly felt the living
literary death to which he was doomed for more than a
quarter of a century.

The vicissitudes of prose have been even more varied.
Karamzin had barely established the new style of writing,
based on French and English writers, still struggling with
the reactionary tendency of Shishkov, whose antiquated style
is prominent in Griboye'dov's comedy, when a whole school
of Romanticists, beginning with Besttizhev-Marlinski and
Lazhechnikov, and ending with Pushkin and Lermontov,
evolved, under the influence of Walter Scott, the Russian
novel. It is a far cry from Karamzfn's Liza to Pushkin's
Captain's Daughter and to Lermontov' s Hero of Our Time.
Yet, within less than a decade after the latter had charmed
the public, Gogol's Dead Souls completely obliterated the
fame of all its predecessors, and Byelmski's dictum in regard
to the Natural School at once set the pace for an entirely
new set of writers, — the novelists of the forties. Turgenev,
Gonchar6v, Tolst6y, Dostoevski, Pisemski, were trained in
that school and wrote their first productions in the lifetime
of Gogol. Yet after the memorial year 1848 a reaction set
in in literature as well as in affairs, and the fifties, ex-
cept for rare flashes of genius from Turgenev and Tolstoy,
were one barren waste. Of Gogol's example and Byelfnski's
injunctions hardly a trace was left. Then, during the reign
of Alexander II., the atmosphere was again cleared, and the
sixties produced that wonderful series of writings for which
Russia is mainly known abroad. And yet, in 1862, Turgenev
proved by his Fathers and Sons that he was no longer in

A Sketch of Russian Literature 5

touch with Russian reality; and a few years later, after Tol-
stoy had written his War and Peace and Anna KarSnin, be-
gan Tolst6y's rapid departure from all reality.

In the meantime the critics, from the master Byelinski
down, through Dobrolyubov, Pisarev and Chernyshevski,
reached the ne plus ultra of negation, and with them rose a
new set of authors, who returned to the lowest elements of
society for their themes, — to the peasants. Grigorovich,
Pomyal6vski, Uspe*nski, and a whole host of minor writers,
many of them riotous in the absence of style, produced a vast
amount of literature. Dostoevski, revelling in excruciating
psychological analyses, wrote his best work, Crime and
Punishment \ in 1865. No wonder, then, that after such a
concentrated creative period there should follow a decade of
impotence, in which the only relief was afforded by the older
writers, who occasionally lighted up the darkness with their
phosphorescence. Then, since the eighties, there has been
a November shower of novelists, Korolenko, Potapenko,
Chekhov, Boborykin, and many, many more, and but lately
a new comet has loomed up in the horizon in the person of
Maksim G6rki.

The periods of distinct literary ideals are so short, their
activities so varied, that one feels tempted to treat the nine-
teenth century by decades, or, to avoid embarrassing results
from a purely mechanical arrangement, to survey each field
of belles-lettres, poetry, drama, prose, in its evolution from
Karamzfn to the present. Neither method, however, is free
from serious objections, and it will be found more convenient
to regard the literary movement under each reign, especially
since the Decembrist revolt at the end of the rule of Alexan-
der I., the Crimean War under Nicholas I., and the death
of Alexander II. mark real epochs in the intellectual move-
ments of Russia. Each reign, in its turn, is by some his-
torical event divisible into two parts, the first of which
coincides with aspirations and vigorous activities in litera-
ture, the second with relaxation and indifference. Such
events were the year 1812 and, in a higher measure, the year
1848.

6 A Sketch of Russian Literature

It would, however, be incorrect to identify the various
periods with the political changes of the Empire. Though,
naturally, a new impetus may be given at the beginning of
a new reign, or a great national calamity may rouse the
dormant literary powers of the people, yet the accessions to
the throne of the successive rulers, and their policies, do not
sufficiently account for the shortness of each separate period
and their apparently abrupt cessations; just as, on the other
hand, the political changes themselves are frequently only
the reflex of the antecedent literary movement with the pro-
nounced public opinion which is based upon it. Thus, for
example, the emancipation of the serfs, with its tremendous
political and social consequences, was not merely an arbi-
trary act of the monarch, but the logical culmination of the
literary propaganda, with Turgenev and his Memoirs of a
Huntsman at its head, which had preceded it.

Nor can governmental policy and severity of censorship
be made accountable for the short-lived literary influence of
each individual author, for the early maturity of genius, and
the wide chasm between the author's sunny youth and his
old age in the rare instances when he has lived beyond his
forties, At forty years of age, rather earlier than later, all
Russian writers have reached their apogee. Most authors
have gained their reputation long before that, and their old
age passes by unnoticed or in mystic abstractions, and in
nearly all cases out of tune with the realities of the day.
And how appallingly large is the number of those whose
career was brought to an untimely end before they had
reached forty, either by violent means, as that of Pushkin
and Lermontov, or through insanity, as that of Garshin, or
through disease, frequently as the result of dire wretched-
ness in youth, or of intemperance, as that of Byelfnski,
Dobrolyubov, Pisarev, Nikitin, Nadson, and many others!

The peculiar conditions of Russian literary life are the re-
sult of the whole social structure of the country. Here we
shall find an answer to the many perplexing questions that
the foreigner must necessarily put to himself as he contem-
plates, not only the peculiar course of Russian belles-lettres

A Sketch of Russian Literature 7

and their artistic and political maxims, but also the exag-
gerated relation that Russian men of letters bear to the po-
litical life of the nation.

The literate class of the people of Russia is at the present
time but a small part of the total population, and the cultured
elements of society form but a small percentage of all those
who can read and write Russian. The conditions were,
naturally, much more unfavourable for education in the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century. The Western civilisa-
tion which had spread over Russia since the days of Peter the
Great had not penetrated deep: it had not touched the core
of things, had not changed much in the semi-barbaric home
life of the gentry and even of the higher nobility. Below
these classes it was practically non-existent. A desire for
learning there was, and the fathers who wished to have their
children benefited by the blessings of an education had
either to fall back on foreign tutors, or to send them to the
schools maintained at Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Ly-
ceum at Tsarskoe-Selo was the chief seminary of learning
for the sons of the nobility. The sons were just as eager to
acquire the lustre of the foreign culture, but they invariably
understood this European learning merety as a counterac-
tion to the brutal surroundings of old Russia. They brought
with them no home traditions of refinement, no settled po-
litical and social views. At their schools the young men
were banded together by common interests of progress
against the world without, and they felt that the future of
Russia depended upon them as an intellectual force. Had
the next generation of students been recruited exclusively
from the sons of men who had enjoyed school advantages
before, there would have been a nucleus for traditional
culture. But, in the nature of the case, ever-new elements
were availing themselves of the higher schooling, and the
younger generation was as much torn out of its barren sur-
roundings as the young men at the beginning of the cent-
ury. They, too, were the chosen few, and upon them, they
knew, devolved the task of regenerating their country. Un-
fortunately they lacked not only traditions of culture in their

8 A Sketch of Russian Literature

•

families, but the school had not been able to transmit any
other positive tradition than the general desire for mental
training and literary brilliancy. The ethical principle of
culture was but weakly developed, and the absence of stated
maxims of life made philosophic moderation impossible. If
the older generation had been carried away by the prevailing
French taste, or by Byron's enticing poetry, or by the power-
ful Romanticism of Germany, without, however, grasping
the underlying philosophy of either, or making it its own,
the youths of the thirties sat at the feet of the German phi-
losophers, and with the enthusiasm of new converts trans-
ferred their tenets into their whole view of life and letters,
however, by first eliminating from it the essence of methodi-
cal thinking, which alone would have assured any perman-
ency to the Russian ecstasy.

Since culture was confined chiefly to the higher classes of
society, there was slowly growing up a select circle of culti-
vated men who, while not characterised by the stability of
the German intellectual class or the dignified refinement of
the English aristocracy, atoned for the superficiality of their
learning by a superabundance of youthful enthusiasm. But,
before the gentry had any time to crystallise into an intel-
lectual class, the doors of schools were thrown open to the
nation at large, and the middle classes began at once to avail
themselves of the privilege. There was a new influx of men
without a tradition, and the work of intellectualising had to
be begun once more. The vigorous burghers had not the
wealth and position of their noble predecessors to distract
their spiritual energies, and to them the pursuit of learning
was a very serious matter. But their efforts were often
thwarted by a struggle against all kinds of adversities, and
they frequently succumbed in body and mind to the effects
of poverty and persecution. If the sons of the gentry in the
previous generations stood out as a protest against their
fathers, the young men now added to it a protest against
the higher classes, and, as is natural in a state of chronic
protests, they rapidly reached the negation of everything.
Russian literature passes all the stages of negation, from the

A Sketch of Russian Literature 9

criticisms of Chatski in Griboyedov's comedy to the con-
scious superiority of Bazarov in Turgenev's Fathers and
Sons, and from the critiques of Byelmski to the negation of
art and literature in the acrid solvent of Pisarev's reviews
and in the latter-day literary productions of the master-
artist Tolstoy.

The salutary effects of the renewal of the intellectual
classes with every generation have been in the extreme de-
mocratisation of Russian society, and in the frequent and
varied evolution of talent, — artistic, musical, literary, po-
litical. But the democracy, lacking the moderation of estab-
lished procedure, too often loses itself in mazes of inactive
speculation, and, lacking historic perspective and philosophic
precision, is vacillating in its ultimate ends; while the same
causes militate against a concentration of talent, and rather
disperse its strength and nullify its effects. Hence the apt
classification of the heroes of Russian novels as so many
Oblomovs, which Dobrolyubov has made in his review of
Gonchar6v's famous work. It is, indeed, a notable fact that
Russia has not produced a single philosopher worthy of the
name, and a late attempt at discovering The Philosophic
Tendencies in Russian Poetry has resulted in a meagre work
which, though interesting for the poets it harbours, is con-
spicuous for the absence of that philosophy which it sets out
to find.

Philosophy can have free sway only where there is calm
reflection; and reflection lies at the base of actions only where
ideals of life are formed at a mature age. Unfortunately for
Russia, young men have stood behind the cultural move-
ments, and by * ' young men ' ' are in Russia understood those
who have not yet reached the age of thirty. In the Anglo-
American civilisation men between thirty and fifty are sup-
posed to be young men, men of action, which view, having
its origin in the conservative spirit of Anglo-Saxon institu-
tions, more than anything else assures a cautious progress.
In Russia, we have seen, the task of fostering progress has
fallen on school-lads and university students. The conse-
quence has been disastrous. Russian youths have tried to

io A Sketch of Russian Literature

carry high the banner of progress, and one cannot help
but admire the courage with which they have upheld their
cause, the enthusiasm with which they have advocated their
tenets, the sacrifices which they have ever been ready to
bring. At the same time it must be evident that their cour-
age has frequently been ill-advised, their enthusiasm brittle
because not tempered by chill experience, and their sacrifices
vain and useless. There has been no bond of sympathy be-
tween the sons and their fathers, and the enthusiasm of one
generation has not been bequeathed in its turn to the next.

As long as effervescent youth has lasted, Russians have
not hesitated to throw their whole souls into their cause. In
Pushkin's days they surpassed Byron in the recklessness of
their youthful excesses, and would-be Manfreds could be
met with in the flesh. As Slavophiles they were willing to
forego the fruits of Western civilisation, and gloried in their
unwieldy native costume. As Soilers and Populists they re-
nounced the society of their likes, and buried themselves in
the deadening wildernesses of distant villages. Even if the
Government had not nipped their efforts by exile and prisons,
their fate could not later in life have been happy. When
their first fervour had evaporated, and they were brought
face to face with actualities, the discrepancy between theories
and practices of necessity produced a revulsion. The stout
of heart maintained their cherished hopes, but their minds
became variously affected by quiet sorrow, melancholy, de-
spair. The men of coarser texture turned liberal opportun-
ists, temporisers, or downright deniers of all their previous
thoughts and acts. The Government absorbed these as
officials in various capacities, and thus the better elements,
through their abhorrence of compromise, have generally
been lost to the State.

The same disenchantment is noticeable in the life of every
man of letters. Literature has been in Russia the field in
which all the battles of progress have been fought. As there
does not exist a representative government, where political
opinions may struggle for recognition, and as there cannot
exist a public opinion based on tradition and class interests,

A Sketch of Russian Literature 1 1

literature alone appears as the medium for advancing social s
and political ideas ; and since scientific treatises reach but a
vanishing proportion of the nation, belles-lettres proper have
in Russia become the means for inculcating and propagating
truths. In the beginning of the nineteenth century this was
not yet so apparent, and literature for art's sake could hold
its own. But with the advancing democratisation of society,
literature gathered ever more around camps with definite
ideas, and literary art receded more and more and lived out
its day in oblivion. The individual authors have always
been conscious of their high calling, and in their youth
have devoted themselves with fervour to their tasks; but in
middle life they generally have been chilled by the actual
conditions of life, and have fallen a prey to disappoint-
ment, the effects of which were mysticism, renunciation, op-
portunism, as the case might be.

Thus, also, there has followed a period of comparative
stagnation and even retrogression after every decade of con-
centrated production. The men whom common interests
had brought together in literary emulation had passed their
perihelion, and another generation had not yet reached ma-
turity; and in the interim the discordant notes could be
heard more clearly. In the last twenty years, however, a
marked change has taken place in Russian literature. While
there has not risen an author of the first magnitude, there
has been no lack of writers and poets of the second rank,
and the reactionary element has been well kept in abeyance.
Russian critics stigmatise this period as one of mediocrity,
and despair of the future, since never before has there
been so long a time without some author of strong personality
and influence. In reality, the symptoms are very encourag-
ing. It is evident from the long duration of the smoulder-
ing literary life that society is becoming more stable, even
though temporarily less deep, and that literary sentiment
and culture is gaining in breadth. The next outburst of
literary activities will unquestionably be greater than any
that have preceded it.

12 A Sketch of Russian Literature

•

ii

The gloom which had spread over literature at the end of
Catherine's reign was lifted at the very opening of the nine-
teenth century by the accession of the liberal Alexander I.
Instead of continuing the persecution of the Free Masons
and suppressing literature, the Emperor himself favoured all
kinds of mystic societies, and carried his liberalism to the
greatest extreme. He associated with Quakers, and Jesuits
were left unmolested in the capital. He proposed to re-
organise the country on Western models, and did not think
it unwise to ask Thomas Jefferson for a sketch of the Ameri-
can Constitution. He surrounded himself with men of pro-
nounced progressive tendencies, and heaped honours on the
author of the Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, whose
advanced ideas had so displeased Catherine.

Yet only the end of his reign saw the fruition of the new
spirit in literature, when Pushkin with his mighty genius for
ever settled the direction Russian letters were to take. There
could have been no sudden change. No new ideals had taken
the place of the literary traditions of the eighteenth cent-
ury, which looked upon authorship as a pleasant pastime
and profitable exercise of wit, but did not invest the authors
with the dignity of social factors. Though Romanticism
was rapidly displacing the older pseudo-classicism, many
authors of the former style were still active among the
changing surroundings. Ozerov produced his thunderous
dramas and found a ready audience, and Derzhdvin not only
continued his writing of odes, but was able to maintain a
coterie of literary men who would not listen to the innova-
tions of Karamzin.

The most persistent stickler for the old conventions was
Shishk6v. He had no ear for the subtler beauties of verse,
and identified poetry with high-sounding epithets and well-
turned phrases. His admiration for the older bards led him
to seek in their language, with the strange admixture of
Church-Slavic words, the proper norm for all time, and to
abhor the introduction of foreign words, which Karamzin so

A Sketch of Russian Literature 13

dexterously applied in his formation of a new literary style.
As President of the Russian Academy Shishk6v exercised a
certain influence, and the discussion of the two styles agi-
tated society for some time. There was just a spark of truth
in his contention. Like Shcherbatov before him, and the
Slavophiles thirty years later, he was anxious to see a
greater approach to the national spirit. Like his prede-
cessor, he did not fail to recognise that the colourless imita-
tion of foreign models was not bringing literature any
nearer to the people, and, like the older historian, he receded
as far as possible into the past in his search for native ele-
ments. Writers were at that time not yet prepared to look
for a common bond with the people in a living intercourse
with them.

In the meanwhile Karamzin proceeded to find his models
for composition in the West, and to base his literary style
on a close imitation of French and English writers. He
freely introduced such words and turns as would mould Rus-
sian into a simpler and more harmonious instrument. His
example has been followed ever since. He was led by per-
sonal predilection and a natural pensiveness to father that
sentimentalism which had found such a ready soil in Burope.
How unnatural for Russian that sentimentalism was, may
be seen in the gentle transformation the peasants have suf-
fered in his novels. But in his day no one took exception
to such a treatment, and many affected that exotic sentiment
themselves.

In general, the particular direction of any author was very
much a matter of chance. Not the necessities of the time,
not the spiritual needs of any class of society decided what
the poet was to sing and the novelist was to write about, —
indeed, society had not yet risen to a well-defined spiritual
life, — but the temporary whim of the author, the accidental
acquaintance with this or that manifestation in the foreign
literatures were the only reasons for transplanting the for-
eign models upon Russian soil. The adroitness with which
extraneous themes have been handled by many of the writ-
ers is truly remarkable. In Bdtyushkov it reached masterly

14 A Sketch of Russian Literature

perfection. Having tried himself in imitations of German,
French, and classical models, his interest finally centred on
the Italian poets, especially Tasso. The result of his especial
predilection was that faultless poem, The Dying Tasso, which
combines epic calm and majesty of language as probably no
other production in Russian literature. But he had no con-
temporary audience that could follow him in his exquisite
interpretation of the Italian classical spirit, just as Gnyedich,
the famous translator of the Iliad, felt aggrieved at the in-
difference with which society met his great undertaking.

While a select number of authors, separating themselves
from the life that surrounded them, found inspiration in the
distant past, Zhuk6vski devoted himself to familiarising his
nation with the productions of the German Romantic Muse.
But, while in Europe Romanticism was the logical outcome
of the period of storm and stress through which it had just
passed, it bore no relation to actual spiritual needs in Russia.
Consequently only the external form and the technique, and
not the inner meaning was transplanted by Zhuk6vski to his
native soil. It is true, he all the time preached a high ideal
for poetry, but that ideal was only superficially related to
the fashionable Romantic verse in which he enunciated it.

More original than these was Kryl6v who, basing his
fables on those of La Fontaine, clad them in an idiomatic
form and adorned them with an art peculiarly his own. It
would be, however, a mistake to suppose that he, at least,
fell back on the native element for his subjects. There is
absolutely nothing Russian in his fables. Not only do the
popular animal stories differ widely from those employed by
him for illustration, but he did not hesitate to introduce
classical allusions whenever a chance offered itself. The
same method, though in a coarser vein, was also pursued by
Izmaylov.

The year 1812 had its immediate effects upon literature.
It gave rise to patriotic songs, like Zhuk6vski's In the Camp
of Russian Warriors, and to the patriotic series by Rylyeev.
It led to a closer study of Russian history, and Karamzm's
monumental work could not have come at a more auspicious

A Sketch of Russian Literature 15

period. The consequences were even greater. Many young
officers who had formed their ideals of life through the imi-
tations of their native literature took part in the campaign
in Germany and France, and there came in contact with all
the living movements that agitated the best minds. They
brought home with them a new enthusiasm, formed secret
societies in imitation of the German Tugendbund, and
dreamed of a violent reorganisation of Russia. All the best
young forces were directly or indirectly affected by the new
ideal. In the meanwhile the Government entered into its
phase of reaction, and obscurantism became rampant. Uni-
versity professors were watched by the secret police, and
instruction was carried on under great difficulties. The
slightest expression of independence or freedom led to ban-
ishment and imprisonment. The strained relations between
the youthful idealists and the reactionaries culminated in
the unfortunate and impossible Decembrist conspiracy in
1825, when Rylye*ev, among others, paid the penalty of
death for his rashness.

But the accumulated literary force could no longer be dis-
persed. A galaxy of poets had with wonderful skill repro-
duced every imaginable aspect of European verse, even
though they did not enter into a full understanding of the
meaning and duty of their art. The language had been
polished by Karamzin and his followers to its utmost extent
and was now capable of every literary form. It only needed
a subtle genius to breathe a soul into that fair body. That
genius was Pushkin.

in

A period rich in literary experience and new modes of ex-
pression does not necessarily presage the coming of a genius
who will unify the unrelated modes into a symmetric, in-
trinsically artistic whole. But, given an ardent poetic soul
and a time when the minds of men are agitated by high
aspirations and hopes, the opportunity is favourable for that
soul to become the focus of all the tendencies of the day, and

1 6 A Sketch of Russian Literature

•

to reflect the accumulated force as one bright light for long
years to come. The conditions could not have been more aus-
picious for giving direction and meaning to Pushkin's genius.
Not only Derzhavin, Karamzin, Dmitriev, Zhuk6vski, Bat-
yushkov, and Krylov furnished him in his youth with varied
poetical productions for his imitation, but a large number
of minor poets, trained in the traditions of the eighteenth
century, Merzlyakov, Neledlnski-Meletski, Dolgoruki, were
still active during the formative time of his genius. And not
only the external forms of verse had been carried to a high
perfection in his schooldays. The liberalism of the Govern-
ment in the beginning of Alexander's reign, the stirring
patriotism of the nation consequent upon the events of the
year 1812, the crass obscurantism and reaction from above,
and the secret organisations of the youthful idealists which
soon after superseded the open progress of the previous
decade, — all that combined to inspire the younger generation
of poets with the seriousness and dignity of their mission.

In his evolution Pushkin passed through several stages.
In Rusldn and Lyudmila, which he wrote in 1820, the
year of his first exile, he attempted to treat a popular subject
in the Romantic style, but there is little of a native element
in it. During his banishment to the south he came under
the influence of Byron, and began his Evgtni OnySgin, the
first real Russian novel. In Boris Godundv he came under
the spell of Shakspere.

In the beginning of the new reign, Pushkin's genius was
clearly defined and, departing from the Byronism of his
former productions, became completely original. At the
same time he renounced the easy liberalism of his younger
days, and placed himself in the service of the Tsar. Since
he withdrew from the communion with the masses and
preached an aristocratism in letters as well as life, his real
importance in Russian literature has been obscured by the
more democratic Gogol. The doctrine which he taught, that
art is to be exercised for art's sake and not polluted by con-
tact with the vulgar, found no ready response in the troubled
years of the second half of the century. Only now, when

A Sketch of Russian Literature 1 7

the battle for the masses has been fought, and literature is
beginning to lose its didactic and political value, there is to
be noticed a growing tendency to turn back to Pushkin as
the fountainhead of Russian poetry. This just renewal of
the cult of Pushkin has already had the marked effect of re-
discovering and bringing to public notice the excellent crea-
tions of the poets of his school, Tyutchev, Fet, Maykov,
Polonski, and others, and of stimulating the youngest gen-
eration of poets, whose names are just beginning to be heard,
to higher efforts.

Many contemporary poets were inspired by the master.
Delvig, Rylyeev, Baratynski, Venevitinov, Yazykov came
under his influence, but they were not able to follow him in
his eagle flight, and stopped at the earlier stages of his de-
velopment. There were others who showed more indi-
viduality, or even opened up new avenues in literature.
Griboyedov's Intelligence Comes to Grief stood out as the
most remarkable drama that had till then appeared in Russia,
as it had seized with great clearness the contradictory and
indefinite tendencies of society, and indicated the coming
conflict between Westerners and Slavophiles. But the in-
definite tendencies of the time were reflected with far greater
power in Le'rmontov.

Ldrmontov's Hero of Our Time is, to a certain extent, an
autobiography. It is^of the same spiritual family as Evgtni
Onytgin, but the greater indefiniteness and disenchantment
of its hero supply a true portrayal of the men of the thirties
who had not yet come to have any well-defined aims in life.
Men were dissatisfied with the past, saw all the misery and
wretchedness that surrounded them, and wished for some-
thing better to come, but did not have the energy to rise
above their surroundings and so lost themselves in contra-
dictions and Byronic despair. The same subjective tone
runs through all his shorter poems and through The Demon,
that most precious flower of the whole Romantic school.
Such is the sweetness of his verse and the wealth of his
imagery that he is preferred by many foreign readers even
to Pushkin.

1 8 A Sketch of Russian Literature

•

More original than Lermontov was his contemporary
Koltsov. His middle-class surroundings had brought him
in much closer contact with the people than Pushkin, and
his neglected early education operated in favour of his poetic
genius inasmuch as it kept him free from any traditional
associations. When his talent became apparent to him, he
for a short time tried his strength in the customary rhymed
verses, especially of the type of Pushkin, whom he greatly
admired and understood as few poets after him have done.
But soon his native feeling asserted itself, and he began to
draw his inspiration from popular songs. A number of poets
before him, especially Delvig, had attempted this kind of
composition, but none of them had even distantly brought
to bear the same talent upon it as Koltsov, and none after
him have equalled him.

While Romanticism was scoring its greatest successes, and
a novel-reading public was going into ecstasies over the im-
passioned stories of Bestuzhev-Marlmski, G6gol evolved his
series of naturalistic stories, rising by pyramidal steps to his
immortal Dead Souls, which appeared in the very year that
Lermontov and Kolts6v died. A new chord was struck, —
one that reverberates even now through all Russian litera-
ture. The foundation was placed for a Russian school of
belles-lettres, the first in its annals. All the peculiarities of
Russian literature for all time to follow are the direct
outcome of the tradition which begins with G6gol. His
appearance, though startling and unexpected, was not un-
prepared. There has always been a strong element of sound
naturalism in the Russian character. It shows frequently
through the Byzantine shroud in the earliest times; it re-
freshes us in many a simple folktale; it is a pre-eminent
characteristic of the thoughts and acts of Peter the Great ;
it craves expression in the exotic pseudo-classic rhetoric of
the eighteenth century; it comes to the surface in Pushkin's
best productions. G6gol had even a direct predecessor in
the manner of his stories in the person of Naryezhny who,
being born in the same locality with him, had fallen back on
the same rich narrative material of his native Little-Russia.

A Sketch of Russian Literature 19

But in Gogol this naturalism was for the first time clearly
expressed and completely freed from all foreign contamina-
tion. Not at once, however. He made his debut with a
Romantic idyl, and all his earlier productions are still tinged
with the current mannerism. Only in 1836 appeared his
Cloak, the prototype of all later Russian novels. He was
not at once accepted by the public, so daring were his in-
novations, so disenchanting his realism, so appalling the
wretchedness of Russia which he laid bare. He did not
himself proceed consciously upon the new path, but by the
inspiration of his genius. I^ater in life, therefore, when a
reaction set in in his thoughts, he deeply regretted his
earlier activity. But there was no retracing his steps. The
critic Byelmski had subjected him to literary analysis, and
had pronounced him the father of the new school. It seemed
to him as if there had not even existed a literature before
G6gol, and all previous writers henceforth barely eked out
an anthology existence.

The conscious tendency towards realism in Russia was due
to another fact. The predilection for the encyclopedic know-
ledge of France and its literature had come to an end in the
thirties. Young men had become acquainted in Germany
with the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, and the circles
of Moscow were ever more familiarising themselves with the
more serious aspects of German science. Those who were
not forgetful of their obligations to Europe gathered around
Byelmski in their advocacy of a greater approach to Western
ideals. Others, again, inspired by the conceptions of na-
tion, national spirit, national destiny, which the German
philosophers had evolved, were led to seclude themselves
from all foreign influence by advocating the narrow tenets
of Slavophilism. The Slavophiles have not produced one
great author, for Khomyakov is better known for his theo-
logical writings than for his poetry, and Aksakov, who had
received his training before the thirties, wrote his Family
Chronicle in his old age, evidently under the influence of
Gogol. All the great writers who are honoured abroad,
Turgenev, Tolst6y, Dostoevski, have issued from the camp

20 A Sketch of Russian Literature

i

of the Westerners, and had received their impetus in the
thirties and early in the forties.

After the year 1848 a reaction set in in letters, under the
influence of the political gloom that had been cast over
Kurope, but especially over Russia. The censorship became
more oppressive than ever, and a general apathy took pos-
session of society. Periodicals ceased to exist, or were colour-
less and pedantic. The flimsiest society novels had pushed
all the great literature of the previous decade into the back-
ground. The gloom hung over Russia until the end of the
reign of Nicholas I., lighted up only by the flashes of the
great authors who were passing through their apprenticeship.

IV

G6gol more appropriately ends the old series of authors
than begins the new. His powerful genius raised him above
his predecessors, but the absence of a definite political or
social tendency in his works makes him more akin to the
writers of pure art. In the forties, a younger generation of
writers was trained in the philosophical conceptions of Ger-
many, and the democratic spirit that swept over Europe
affected them in favour of the people. It became incumbent
on these authors, not merely to amuse by their productions,
but to teach and propagate definite social ideals, to become
the protagonists in the battle for human liberties. At the
same 'time the vast abyss which lay between their theories
and the disheartening reality about them, the unmooring
from all the traditions of the past, and the hopelessness of
the future developed in them a strain of scepticism and self-
analysis that sooner or later led to pessimism.

The oldest of these new authors, Turgenev, who was the
first to express his interest in the people, remained all his
life an advocate of a peaceful progress on the basis of a cau-
tious adoption of Western ideals. In style he was a realist
of a pronounced type, but his genius saved him from carry-
ing his naturalism to the appalling extent to which the
French novelists have carried it. In 1847 ne began to at-
tract attention by his sketches from peasant life, but in the

A Sketch of Russian Literature 2 1

sixties he depicted the condition of the intelligent classes as
affected by the emancipation of the serfs. The keynote to
the conception of his heroes is struck in an article of his on
Hamlet and Don Quixote^ in which he expresses the thought
that all people belong to one of these two types, but that in
his days there was a predominance of Hamlets, that is, of
such as are prone to analysis and scepticism.

Goncharov, in his Oblomov, has given us a type of a
passive man who lacks every initiative, and has generalised
in his hero all Russians as by nature incapable of active
progress; but Tolstoy very early began to carry his analysis
to the farthest extent and not only assumed a negative atti-
tude towards all the questions of the day, but soon reached
the negation of all progress in general, and sought refuge
from the world without in a close communion with the peo-
ple. He is less careful about style and artistic perfection of
his productions than Turgenev, but in the portrayal of sepa-
rate incidents and in analysis of character he often rises to
the highest art. In the second half of his life, but especially
since the eighties, Tolst6y has carried negation to the im-
possible point of non-resistance, thus repeating, though not
in an identical form, the experience of G6gol.

Dostoevski, born and bred in the city under distressing
circumstances, appropriated for himself the analysis of the
lower elements of the population of the towns. His long
imprisonment in Siberia acquainted him with the mental
and moral life of the criminals, and his own epileptic and
extremely nervous condition made it possible for him to pry
into the recesses of the diseased and depraved mind. His
democratic love for the subjects he described, and the psy-
chological analysis to which he submitted them, however
startling and unusual they are in his case, are in keeping
with the traditions of the men of the forties.

No new school, no new tendency, has since supplanted the
democratic school of analysis which these authors had in-
augurated nearly half a century ago. Nearly all authors
have taken the people for their motto. The question has
only been to decide what really constitutes the people. Just

22 A Sketch of Russian Literature

before and soon after the emancipation the peasants came in
for the largest share of attention. At first their real con-
dition was not clearly understood, and they were, on the
one hand, idealised, and, on the other, represented as objects
worthy of ridicule. In the meanwhile the Slavophiles, in
their attempt to discover the national spirit, did a great deal
to study their customs and their oral literature. Thus, by
degrees, a proper understanding of the real life of the peasant
was possible, and the novelists of the people were able to treat
them with greater objectivity and truth. Among these
writers of one class or other were DanileVski, Ryeshetnikov,
Levitov, Glyeb Usp6nski, and Zlatovrdtski.

Others, again, proceeded to busy themselves with the in-
telligent class, pre-eminently with the negative sides of their
existence. Pisemski painted them in the blackest colours,
while Saltyk6v applied his great satirical talents more espe-
cially to the disclosure of all the wretchedness and dishonesty
of the middle and the official strata of society. Ostr6vski,
again, took for his dramas the Moscow merchant class which
stood on the border of the old Russian civilisation, and
treated it ideally, apologetically, or negatively at various
stages of his development. In poetry the democratic spirit
of the forties is best reflected in Nekrdsov and in a much
lesser degree in Nikftin. Though these writers are related
to Kolts6v in the treatment of popular themes, they differ
vastly in the application of the democratic motive from their
more artistic predecessor.

In the seventies there was the usual reaction in literature
as well as in the political life of the nation. Since then a
large number of novelists and poets have been endeavouring
to reproduce the currents of modern society. The back-
ground of all this new literature is still the democracy of the
forties, but the centre of interest has shifted from the peasant
and the intellectual class to the large burgher population in
its undefined tendency to form a substantial middle class.
There are no pronounced ideas which these writers feel
themselves called to propagate or defend, hence their task
is comparatively more difficult than that of the previous

A Sketch of Russian Literature 23

generation. They are conscious of this, and when accused
of scattering their energies and not rising to the high points
of the men of the forties, they have justly answered that they
are at a loss to discover any positive tendencies in the nation
to reproduce. In the external technique of their works,
however, there is a decided improvement over the generation
which has just passed away, and the works would, no doubt,
greatly interest foreign readers if they did not so much ap-
proach well-known models of the West.

In this greater cosmopolitanism of the newer Russian
literature, in the broadening of the intellectual horizon,
even though the literary life is more shallow, lies the hope
of Russia's future. Life is readjusting itself on a more
stable basis. The tendencies of society, though indefinite,
are more normal. Hence didacticism in literature is rapidly
passing away, and art, this time tempered by the democratic
spirit of the age, bids fair to regain its place in letters. Two
illustrations will suffice to make this clear. G6rki, who by his
private life and the influence of the democratic school has been
led to descend to the lowest dregs of society for his subjects,
absolutely refrains from inculcating, directly or indirectly,
any social or political tenet. Whatever he paints, he paints
with the consummate skill of the artist for the sake of art.
Merezhk6vski, who has not yet entirely passed his apprentice-
ship in letters, is trying to bridge over the democratic epoch,
which he abhors, and aspires for the laurels of Pushkin.

Compared with its humble beginnings in 1800, Russian
literature has made a wonderful record in the nineteenth
century. The Russian language has been moulded into an
instrument of great perfection : it is melodious, and capable
of all shades of expression and all literary forms. The great
authors of its literature have become the possession of all
nations. Intellectual Russia no longer stands aloof. It is
an important and valuable member of the great nations of
the world. From the steady progress in the past, frequently
under the most trying opposition, must be prognosticated a
still greater advancement in the future. It has well learned
its lessons from the West : it may yet become its teacher.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin. (1766-1826.)

Karamzin was born in the Government of Simbirsk. At fourteen
years of age he entered Professor Schaden's school at Moscow, and
later he attended the university. In 1783 he settled in St. Petersburg
where he began his literary career in conjunction with his friend
Dmitriev (see vol. i., p. 428 et seg.) ; he entered the army for a short
time, and spent the next year in his native place. After that he was
taken to Moscow by I. P. Turge*nev, a friend of N6vikov (see vol. i.,
pp. 32 and 327), and was brought by him under the educational influ-
ences of the Masonic Society, which, however, he never joined him-
self. He devoted himself to the study of the German language,
from which he translated much, and acquainted himself with Eng-
lish literature. In 1789 he travelled extensively through Germany,
Switzerland, France, and England, meeting wherever possible the
famous men of letters. Upon his return he edited, among other
periodicals, the Moscow journal, in which had appeared his Letters
of a Russian Traveller. These differ immensely in tone and literary
execution from the similar compositions by Fon-Vizin (see vol. i., p.
355 et seq.\ and indicate the great stride made in the intellectual ad-
vancement of Russia in the short period of one decade. They created
a sensation, not only on account of the pleasing and novel manner
in which he treated serious subjects, but in a greater measure on ac-
count of the strong element of sentimental optimism that pervaded
them. His sentimentalism is even more pronounced in his poems,
and in his novels Poor Liza, Nat&lya, the Boyar*s Daughter, and
Burgomistress Marfa.

In 1803 Karamzin was appointed historiographer, and he began to
busy himself with Russian antiquity. After twelve years of labour
appeared the first eight volumes of his History of the Russian Em-
pire, in which he continued the sentimental idealisation of the
Russian past. Though extolled by his contemporaries, and even
later, as the first real history of Russia, it differs from those of his
predecessors, the Russians Shcherbdtov (see vol. i., p. 287) and
Tatishchev (id., p. 218), and the German historians in Russia, not by

27

28 The Nineteenth Century

any scientific method, but by its literary exposition, which served as
a model for a generation of historical novelists. Karamzin's greatest
desert consists in having purified the Russian language from the
dross of Church-Slavic words and constructions, by borrowing freely
from the store of the spoken language, and by following the simpler
constructions and the shorter sentences of the French and the Eng-
lish languages. This innovation involved him in a long controversy
with the adherents of the old style, of which Admiral Shishk6v was
the head, but he came out victorious, and for ever established the
Russian literary norm.

There are several translations, or rather paraphrases, of Karamzin's
stories, and one of his Travels, in English : Russian Tales, . . .
translated into English by J. B. Eirmgton, London, 1803 ; Julia,
translated from the Russ into French by M. du Boullier, and from
the French into English by Ann P. H.[awkins], St. Petersburg, 1803 ;
Tales from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin [translated by A. A.
Feldborg], London, 1804 ; Travels from Moscow, through Prussia,
Germany, Switzerland, France, and England . . . translated from
the German [by A. A. Feldborg], 3 vols., London, 1803. A few of
his poems are given in Sir John Bowring's Specimens of the Russian
Poets, Part I. : The Song of Bornholm, The Churchyard, Autumn,
Lilea, To Nicander ; and in Part II. : Raissa, The Haven, Song of
the Good Tzar, To , To the Nightingale. An epigram is trans-
lated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No.
9, and there is also a version of The Churchyard by W. H. Dole
(publication not ascertainable).

LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER

TVER, May 18, 1789.

I HAVE departed from you, my dear ones, I have de-
parted ! My heart is attached to you with all its tender-
est feelings; and here I am getting farther and farther away
from you !

O heart, heart! Who knows what you want ? For how
many years travel has been the fondest dream of my imagina-
tion! Did I not in rapture say to myself: "At last you will
start " ? Did I not awaken joyfully in the morning, did I
not fall asleep with pleasure, thinking: " You are going to
travel" ? How long I could think of nothing else, busy
myself with nothing else except the journey! And did I
not count the days and hours ? But when the desired hour

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 29

arrived, I grew sorrowful, for I came to the first vivid reali-
sation that I was about to part from the dearest people in
the world, and from all that, so to say, entered into the com-
position of my moral existence.

Whatever I looked at, whether at the table upon which I
had for, years committed my unripe thoughts and feelings to
paper ; at the window under which I used to sit dolefully in
my fits of melancholy, and where the rising sun found me so
often; at the Gothic house, the favourite object of my eyes
in the nocturnal hours, — in short, everything that came
within my vision was for me a precious monument of the
bygone years of my life, rich not in deeds, but in thoughts
and feelings. I bade farewell to inanimate things as to
friends; and while I was overcome and dispirited, my serv-
ants came, and began to weep and entreat rne not to forget
them and to take them back upon my return. Tears are
contagious, my dear ones, especially in such circumstances.

But you are the dearest to me, and I had to part from
you. My heart was so full that I forgot to speak. But
why should I tell you that ? The moment when we bade
each other good-bye was such that a thousand agreeable
minutes of the future will scarcely repay me for it.

Dear Petrov accompanied me to the toll-gate. There we
embraced each other, and for the first time I observed his
tears; there I seated myself in the kibitka,1 glanced at Mos-
cow, where I left behind so much that was dear to me, and
said: " Good-bye' " The bells jingled, the horses galloped
away, — and your friend was orphaned in the world, and his
soul was orphaned !

The whole past is a dream and a shadow ! Oh ! where are
the hours when my heart was so at ease among you, my dear
ones? If the future were suddenly revealed to the most
fortunate man, his heart would congeal with terror, and his
tongue would grow dumb the very moment in which he
deemed himself the happiest of mortals.

Upon my whole journey not one cheering thought entered
my mind. At the last station in Tver, my melancholy had
1 Native vehicle.

30 t The Nineteenth Century

so increased that, standing, in the village tavern, before the
caricatures of the French Queen and the Roman Emperor, I
felt, as Shakspere says, "my blood weeping from my heart. "
All that I had left behind appeared to me in such a touching
aspect. But enough, enough! I am again growing very
sad. Good-bye! May God console you! Remember your
friend, but without any grievous feeling !

ON THE FRENCH TRAGEDY

In the so-called French Theatre they play tragedies, dramas,
and large comedies. I have not changed my opinion of the
French Melpomene. She is noble, majestic, beautiful, but
she never will touch and stir my heart as does the Muse of
Shakspere and of a few ('t is true, a very few) Germans.
The French poets have a delicate, refined taste, and may
serve as models in the art of writing. Only in the matter of
invention, warmth, and deep sentiment of Nature, — forgive
me, sacred shades of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire ! — they
must concede the supremacy to the English and the Ger-
mans. Their tragedies are filled with artistic pictures in
which the colours and shades are skilfully matched ; but I
generally admire them with a cold heart. There is every-
where a mixture of the natural with the romantic; every-
where "mes feux," "ma foi"; everywhere Greeks and
Romans & la frangaise, who are dissolved in amatory rapt-
ures, who sometimes philosophise, express one thought in
a variety of choice words, and, losing themselves in a maze
of eloquence, forget to act. The public demands here of the
author beautiful verses, ' ' des vers a retenir ' ' ; these make a
play famous, and, consequently, the versifiers use all their
efforts to multiply their number, and are more concerned
about them than about the importance of the plot and the
new, extraordinary, yet- natural situations, forgetting that
character is revealed in these unusual occurrences and that
the very words obtain their strength from them.

To be short, the creations of the French Melpomene are
glorious, and will always be glorious, by the beauty of their

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 31

diction and brilliant verses; but if a tragedy is deeply to stir
our hearts or to terrify our souls, Voltaire's countrymen
have, probably, no more than two real tragedies, and
D' Alembert very justly remarked that all their dramas have
been composed for reading rather than for the theatre.

ON SHAKSPERE

In dramatic poetry the English have nothing remarkable,
except the works of one author, but that author is Shak-
spere, and the English are rich !

It is easy to make light of him, not only with the mind of
a Voltaire, but also with the most ordinary mind. I do not
wish even to dispute with him who does not feel his great
beauties. The amusing critics of Shakspere resemble those
naughty urchins who in the street surround a strangely
dressed man and cry out : * ' What a funny fellow ! What a
strange fellow ! ' '

Every author is marked with the stamp of his age.
Shakspere wished to please his contemporaries, knew their
taste, and satisfied it. What seemed to be witty then is now
wearisome and repulsive; this is the result of the evolution
of the mind and taste, with which even the greatest genius
cannot count. But every real talent creates for eternity,
though paying the tribute to his age: the contemporary
beauties disappear, and the common ones that are based on
the human heart and on the nature of things preserve their
strength, in Shakspere as in Homer. The grandeur and
truthfulness of the characters, the attractiveness of the plot,
the revelation of the human heart, and the great thoughts
that are scattered in the dramas of the British genius will
always keep their magic charm for people who are endowed
with sentiment. I know no other poet who has such an all-
embracing, fertile, inexhaustible imagination,— and you will
find all kinds of poetry in Shakspere' s works. He is the
favourite son of the goddess Fancy who surrendered to him
her magic wand, and disporting in the luxuriant gardens of
the imagination he creates miracles at each step.

32 The Nineteenth Century

LONDON, September, 1790.

There was a time, when I had hardly seen any English-
men, when I went into ecstasy over them, and imagined
England to be of all countries the most agreeable to my
heart. With what delight, being a boarding pupil at Pro-
fessor S's, I used to read during the American war the reports
of the victorious British admirals ! Rodney, Howe, did not
leave my tongue ; I celebrated their victories and invited my
young schoolmates to my room. It seemed to me that to be
an Englishman was to be brave, also magnanimous, senti-
mental, and true. If I am not mistaken, novels were the
chief foundation for this opinion. Now I see the English at
close range, and I do them justice and praise them, but my
praise is as cold as they themselves are.

Above all, I should not like to pass my life in England on
account of its damp, gloomy, sombre climate. I know that
one may be happy even in Siberia when the heart is satisfied
and joyful, but a cheerful climate makes us more cheerful,
and here one feels, in a fit of pining and melancholy, more
than elsewhere like committing suicide. The groves, parks,
fields, gardens, — all that is beautiful in England; but it is all
covered with fogs, darkness, and coal smoke. The sun rarely
peeps through, and then only for a short time; but without
it life upon earth is not a pleasure. * ' Give my regards to
the sun," someone wrote from here to his friend in Naples;
"I have not seen him for a long time." The English winter
is not so cold as ours; but we have at least beautiful days in
winter, which are uncommon here even in summer. How,
then, can an Englishman keep himself from looking like
September ?

In the second place, their cold natures do not please me
in the least. "It is a snow-covered volcano," a French emi-
grant said of them smilingly to me. But I stand, watch, see
no flame, and meanwhile freeze. My Russian heart loves
to bubble in a sincere, lively conversation, loves the play of
the eyes, the rapid changes of the face, the expressive mo-
tion of the hands. The Englishman is reticent, indifferent,
and speaks as he reads, without ever expressing those sud-

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 33

den mental convulsions that electrify our whole physical
system. They say he is profounder than others. Is it not
rather that he seems profounder ? Is it not because his thick
blood moves more slowly in him, and gives him the aspect
of being deep in thoughts, though he often has none ? The
example of a Bacon, Newton, Locke, Hobbes, proves no-
thing. Geniuses are born in all lands ; the universe is their
country, and, then, can it be said in justice that, for example,
Locke is deeper than Descartes and Leibnitz ?

THE CHURCHYARD

FIRST VOICE

How frightful the grave! How deserted and drear!
With the howls of the storm- wind, the creaks of the bier,
And the white bones all clattering together!

SECOND VOICE

How peaceful the grave ! Its quiet how deep !
Its zephyrs breathe calmly, and soft is its sleep,
And flowerets perfume it with ether.

FIRST VOICE

There riots the blood-crested worm on the dead,
And the yellow skull serves the foul toad for a bed,
And snakes in its nettle- weeds hiss.

SECOND VOICE

How lovely, how lone the repose of the tomb !
No tempests are there, but the nightingales come
And sing their sweet chorus of bliss.

FIRST VOICE

The ravens of night flap their wings o'er the grave:
'T is the vulture's abode; 't is the wolf's dreary cave,
Where they tear up the earth with their fangs.

VOL. II.— 3.

34 The Nineteenth Century

SECOND VOICE

There the coney at evening disports with his love,
Or rests on the sod, while the turtles above
Repose on the bough that o'erhangs.

FIRST VOICE

There darkness and dampness with poisonous breath
And loathsome decay fill the dwelling of death,
The trees are all barren and bare.

SECOND VOICE

Oh, soft are the breezes that play round the tomb,
And sweet with the violet's wafted perfume,

With lilies and jessamine fair!

»

FIRST VOICE

The pilgrim who reaches this valley of tears
Would fain hurry by, and with trembling and fears
He is launched on the wreck-covered river.

SECOND VOICE

The traveller outworn with life's pilgrimage dreary,
Lays down his rude staff, like one that is weary,
And sweetly reposes for ever.

—From Sir John Bowring's Specimens of the
Russian Poets , Part I.

POOR LIZA

Perchance none of those who live in Moscow know the
surroundings of that city so well as I do, because nobody is
oftener in the open than I, nobody oftener wanders about,
planlessly, aimlessly, whither his eyes carry him, through
meadows and groves, over hills and vales. Every summer
I discover new places of delight, or new beauties in those I
already know.

But most pleasant to me is the place where rise the sombre

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 35

Gothic towers of the monastery of St. Simeon. Standing on
that mound, you survey upon your right nearly all of Mos-
cow, that enormous mass of houses and churches, that pre-
sents itself to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheatre,
— a superb picture, especially when the sun shines upon it,
when his evening rays gleam on the innumerable gilded
cupolas and the innumerable crosses that tower to heaven !

Below, stretch the luscious, dark-green, blossoming fields;
beyond them, there flows over the yellow sands the limpid
river, stirred by the light oars of fishing-boats, or splashing
under the prows of freighted barges that come from the more
fertile parts of the Russian Empire and supply hungry Mos-
cow with grain. On the other side of the river there is seen
an oak grove, and near it graze numerous flocks. There
young shepherds, sitting in the shade of trees, sing simple,
doleful songs, and thus shorten the monotonous summer
days. A little farther off, in the dense verdure of ancient
elms, gleams the gold-domed monastery of St. Daniel's; still
farther away, almost on the verge of the horizon, loom the
blue outlines of the Sparrow Hills. To the left appear vast,
grain-covered fields, groves, three or four villages, and, in
the distance, Kolomna with its high palace.

I often repair to that spot, and nearly always meet spring
there; thither I also repair in the gloomy days of autumn,
to mourn together with Nature. The winds moan terribly
within the walls of the deserted monastery, in the rank grass
of the graves, and in the dark corridors of the cells. There
I lean against the ruins of the tombstones and hearken to the
hollow groan of Time, the groan of those swallowed by the
abyss of the past, which makes my heart flutter and tremble.
At times I enter into the cells, and I picture to myself those
who have lived in them, — sad pictures! Here I see a grey-
haired old man bending his knee before the crucifix and im-
ploring a swift liberation from his earthly fetters, for all
pleasures of life have left him, all his feelings are dead, except
the feeling of ill-health and weakness. There a youthful
monk, with pale face and languishing glance, looks through
the latticed window, sees the merry birds that freely swim

36 The Nineteenth Century

in the aerial ocean,— sees them, and bitter tears issue from
his eyes. He pines, withers, dries up, — and the dismal
sound of a bell announces to me his untimely death.

At times I scan on the doors of the sanctuary the repre-
sentation of miracles that have taken place in this monas-
tery: there fishes fall from heaven to appease the hunger of
the denizens of the cloister that is besieged by a multitud-
inous host; here the image of the Mother of God puts the
enemy to flight. All that refreshes in my mind the history
of our country,— the sad history of those times when the
savage Tartars and Lithuanians with fire and sword laid
waste the surroundings of the Russian capital, and when
luckless Moscow, like a defenceless widow, awaited from
God alone succour in her dire distress.

But most frequently of all I am attracted to the walls of
St. Simeon's monastery by the memory of the tearful fate of
Liza, poor Liza. Oh! I love those objects that touch my
heart and cause me to shed tears of tender sorrow!

Some five hundred feet from the cloister wall there stands,
near a birch grove, amidst a green field, a deserted hut with-
out doors, without windows, without a floor; its roof is de-
cayed and has fallen in long ago. In that hut there lived,
some thirty years ago, lovely Liza with her old mother.

Liza's father was a fairly well-to-do peasant, for he loved
work, carefully tilled the soil, and always led a sober life.
But soon after his death his wife and daughter fell into
poverty. The indolent hand of the hired servant ploughed
the field carelessly, and the grain began to give diminished
returns. They were compelled to let their land to a tenant,
at an inconsiderable income. At the same time the poor
widow, who continuously shed tears for her deceased hus-
band,— for peasant women also know how to love, — grew
weaker and weaker from day to day, and finally could not
work at all. Liza alone, who was fifteen years old at her
father's death, — Liza alone did not spare her tender youth
nor her rare beauty, and laboured day and night: she wove
hempen cloth, knit stockings; in springtime picked flowers,
and in winter berries, and sold them in Moscow. Seeing the

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 37

indefatigableness of her daughter, the sensitive, gentle old
woman frequently pressed her to her feebly beating heart,
called her * ' divine grace, protector, consolation of my old
age, ' ' and prayed to God to reward her for all she did for her
mother.

' ' God gave me hands to work, ' ' Liza would say. ' ' You
nourished me at your breast, watched me in my childhood.
Now it is my turn to look after you. Only stop grieving,
stop weeping! Our tears will not bring father to life."

But often gentle Liza could not restrain her own tears,
for oh ! she recalled that she had had a father, and that he
was no more; but to comfort her mother she tried to hide
the grief of her heart, and to appear calm and gay.

' ' In the world to come, beloved Liza, ' ' the sorrowing old
woman answered, ' ' in the world to come I shall cease to
weep. There, they say, we shall all be happy ; I shall cer-
tainly be happy when I see your father again. But I do not
wish to die now, for what would become of you without me ?
To whom could I leave you ? No, God grant me first to see
you provided for ! Maybe some good man will be found for
you. Then I will bless you, my dear children, will make
the sign of the cross, and willingly will lie down in the damp
earth."

FROM THE "HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN
EMPIRE"

INTRODUCTION

History is in a certain sense the sacred book of the nations,
their most important and indispensable book, the mirror of
their being and activities, the tables of their revelation and
of their laws, the injunction of the ancestors to their poster-
ity, the complement, the exposition of the present, and the
example for the future.

Rulers and lawgivers act according to the lessons of his-
tory, and look upon its pages as the mariner looks upon his
ocean charts. Human wisdom is in need of experience, and
life is short. It is necessary to know how riotous passions
have of yore agitated civil society, and in what manner the

38 ' The Nineteenth Century

beneficent dominion of reason has bridled its tempestuous
onrush, in order to establish order, harmonise the interests
of men, and give them the best attainable happiness upon
earth.

But even a simple citizen must read history. It reconciles
him to the imperfection of the visible order of things, as to
a common phenomenon in all ages; consoles him in his
country's calamities, by certifying to former similar, even
more ominous misfortunes, by which the country did not
perish; it fosters a moral sense, and by its equitable judg-
ment inclines the soul to justice, by which our well-being
and the concord of society are confirmed.

Such is its usefulness, and many are the pleasures of heart
and mind that are derived from it. Curiosity is an innate
feeling with the man of culture and with the savage. At the
famous Olympic games the noise died down, and the masses
preserved silence around Herodotus reading the traditions of
the ages. Even before knowing the use of letters, the na-
tions love history : the old man points out to the youth the
elevated tomb and narrates to him the deeds of the hero
resting in it. The first experiments of our ancestors in the
ait of writing were devoted to religion and history; shrouded
by a dense cloud of ignorance, the people listened eagerly to
the accounts of the chroniclers. Even fiction pleases, but
to get a full pleasure out of it we must deceive ourselves
and imagine that it is true. By opening the graves, raising
the dead, putting life into their hearts and words upon their
lips, by recreating kingdoms from the dust and presenting
to the imagination a series of the ages with their several
passions, customs, acts, — history expands the limits of our
own existence. By its creative power we live with the men
of all times, see and hear them, love and hate them; before
we think of usefulness, we revel in the contemplation of the
various occurrences and of the characters that entertain the
mind or nurture our sensibilities.

If every history, even the inartistically written, may be
pleasing, as Pliny says, — how much more that of our native
land! A true cosmopolite is a metaphysical being or so

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Karamzin 39

unusual a phenomenon that there is no need of speaking
of him, neither to praise nor to condemn him. We are all
citizens, — in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abys-
sinia; the personality of each is closely bound up with his
country : we love it because we love ourselves. The Greeks
and the Romans may captivate our imagination : they belong
to the family of the human race and are no strangers to us
in their virtues and in their weaknesses, in their glory and
in their calamities; but the name of a Russian has a special
attraction for us: my heart beats more strongly for Pozhdrski l
than for Themistocles or Scipio. Universal history by its
great recollections embellishes the world in our eyes, but
Russian history embellishes our country in which we live
and feel. How attractive are to us the banks of the Vol-
khov, Dnieper, Don, when we know what has taken place
upon them in remote antiquity ! Not only Novgorod, Kiev,
Vladimir, but even the cabins of Elets, Kozelsk, Galich, be-
come interesting monuments, and mute objects grow elo-
quent. The shadows of bygone centuries everywhere draw
pictures before us.

Outside of their special value for us, sons of Russia, its
annals have an universal interest. Let us cast a glance at
this unique Empire: thought staggers! Rome in all her
majesty, ruling from the Tiber to the Caucasus, to the Elbe
and to the African sands, could never equal it. Is it not
wonderful how a land that is disrupted by eternal barriers of
Nature, by immeasurable deserts and impenetrable forests, by
cold and hot climates, how Astrakhan and Lapland, Siberia
and Bessarabia, could have formed one empire with Moscow ?
And is that mixture of its inhabitants less wonderful, that
composite and heterogeneous mass of varying degrees of
civilisation? Like America, Russia has its savages; like
other countries of Europe, it displays the fruits of a pro-
tracted civil existence. One need not be a Russian, one
need only think, in order to read with curiosity the tradi-
tions of a nation that by daring and courage has obtained

'The liberator of Russia, during the interregnum of the False
Demetrius.

40 , The Nineteenth Century

the dominion over the ninth part of the world, has discovered
countries, heretofore unknown, has entered them in the
universal system of geography and history, and has en-
lightened them through God-sent faith, without violence,
without atrocities practised by the other devotees of Christ-
ianity in Europe and America, but merely by dint of good
example.

We shall admit that the deeds described by Herodotus,
Thucydides, Livy, are in general more interesting to others
than to Russians, representing as they do more force of char-
acter and a more vivid play of the passions, since Greece
and Rome were world powers and more enlightened than
Russia; yet we may boldly assert that certain incidents,
pictures, characters, of our history are not less curious than
those of antiquity. Such are the exploits of Svyatoslav, the
scourge of Baty, the popular rising under Donskoy, the fall
of N6vgorod, the taking of Kazdn, the victory of the civic
virtues in the time of the interregnum. The giants of the
early dawn, Ol£g and the son of Igor; the simple-minded
knight, blind Vasilko; the friend of his country, virtuous
Monomakh ; the brave Mstislavs, terrible in war and an ex-
ample of meekness in peace; Mikhail of Tver, so famed for
his magnanimous death; the ill-fated, truly courageous
Aleksdndr Nevski; the youthful hero, the vanquisher of
Mamay, — the slightest sketch of them acts powerfully on
the imagination and on the heart. The reign of Ivan III.
alone is a rare treasure of history; at least I know of no
monarch more worthy to live and shine in its sanctuary.
The rays of his glory fall upon the cradle of Peter, and be-
tween these two autocrats are the remarkable Ivan IV. and
Godun6v, who merited his good fortune and his reverses;
the strange False Demetrius; and, after a host of valiant
patriots, boydrs, and citizens, the mentor of the enthroned,
Patriarch Filaret with his august son, the light-bearer in the
darkness of our country's woes; and Tsar Alexis, the wise
father of the Emperor whom Europe has called the Great.
Either all modern history must be silent, or that of Russia
has a right to be heard.

Ivan Andr£evich Krylov 41

3

Andreevich Kryl6v. (176^8-1844.)

Kryl6v's biography is not satisfactory. It is known that he was
the son of a poor army officer, and that he lost his father early in
life. He received only the scantiest education, and while still a boy
became acquainted with practical life. He served in various capaci-
ties in the government offices of St. Petersburg and the province.
Then he disappeared from public view for a number of years, though
it is surmised that he passed much of that time gambling at cards, to
which he was passionately addicted. In 1812 he received an appoint-
ment at the Imperial (later the Public) Library, which gave him
ample leisure to devote himself to literature, though his innate lazi-
ness made him very unproductive. Kryl6v first entered the literary
career before the age of twenty, by a series of mediocre comedies.
From 1789 he edited a number of periodicals, the first of which, The
Spirit Post, was in the manner of the older satirical journals. It was
here that he began to develop the fine satirical vein for which his
fables later became so famous. In 1809 appeared the first small
collection of his fables. Most of his subjects he borrowed from the
older writers, especially from La Fontaine, but he not only gave them
a Russian surrounding, but invested them with such an artistic at-
mosphere as to make them the possession of all times and all nations.
His fables have been translated into all the European and some of
the Asiatic languages.

There are several translations of Kryl6v in English : Krilof and
his Fables, by W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1869 (4th edition, 1883;
several of the poems had been published before, in 1868 and 1870, in
Good Words) ; Krilof ys Fables, Illustrating Russian Social Life,
translated from the Russian for the Calcutta Weekly " Englishman "
[by J. Long], Calcutta, 1869; Kriloff's Original Fables, translated
by I. H. Harrison, London, 1883. Separate fables have been trans-
lated by Sir John Bowring in his Specimens of the Russian Poets,
Part I. (from the manuscript furnished him by Kryl6v) ; three poems,
given below [by W. D. Lewis] in the National Gazette and Literary
Register, Philadelphia, 1825 ; in Russian Fabulists, with Specimens,
in Fraser's Magazine, 1839 and 1842 ; in Chambers's Journal, vol. v.,
1856 ; by Sutherland Edwards, in The Russians at Home, London,
1861 ; by R. Garnett, in The University Magazine, 1879 (Fables from
Krilof}', by C. T. Wilson, in Russian Lyrics, London, 1887; by John
Pollen, in Rhymes from the Russian, London, 1891.

THE ASS AND THE NIGHTINGALE

Chancing a Nightingale to meet,
Thus did an Ass the songstress greet: —

42 , The Nineteenth Century

" Whither in such a hurry winging ?

I 'm told, my dear, you 're famed for singing.

My curiosity I fain would satisfy,

So if you '11 condescend to gratify, —

Come! for a specimen of your rare skill,

And let me hear how featly you can trill! "

Forthwith the Nightingale began,

And through her cadences she ran,

Now tender and most soft,

Anon her voice she raised aloft ;

While all around in silence hushed

Listened to her melting strain,
As its music sweetly gushed,

And floated over dale and plain ;

Hardly breathed the enraptured swain
As drank his ear of sound the stream,
And as he mused on the varying theme.
Ceased the songstress, the critic Ass
His sentence thus began to pass: —
" Upon my word, 't is not amiss!
Yet you should hear
Friend Chanticleer.

From him some lessons you 'd do well to take.
His mode of singing well I know,
Nor can there finer be, I trow.
Yes! He is clever;

And you, my dear, should by all means endeavour
Like him to crow !
He has a voice — a shake —
That really keeps folks quite awake.
Yet after all you do not sing amiss. "
On hearing this,
Far away the song-bird flew.

— From Russian Fabulists, with Specimens, in
Fraser's Magazine, 1842.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov 43

THE QUARTETTE

The tricksy Monkey, the Goat, the Ass, and bandy-legged
Mishka the Bear, determine to play a quartette. They pro-
vide themselves with the necessary pieces of music — with
two fiddles, and with an alto and counter-bass. Then they
sit down on a meadow under a lime-tree, prepared to enchant
the world by their skill. They work away at their fiddle-
sticks with a will ; and they make a noise, but there is no
music in it.

" Stop, brothers, stop! " cried the Monkey, " wait a little!
How can we get our music right ? It 's plain, you must n't
sit as you are. You, Mishka, with your counter-bass, face
the alto. I will sit opposite the fiddle. Then a different
sort of music will begin: we shall set the very hills and
forests dancing."

So they changed places, and recommenced; but the music
is just as discordant as ever.

1 * Stop a little ! ' ' exclaims the Ass ; * * I have found out the
secret. We shall be sure to play in tune if we sit in a
row."

They follow its advice, and form in an orderly line.
But the quartette is as unmusical as ever. Louder
than before there arose among them squabbling and
wrangling as to how they ought to be seated. It hap-
pened that a Nightingale came flying that way, attracted
by their noise. At once they all entreat it to solve their
difficulty.

" Be so kind," they say, " as to bear with us a little, in
order that our quartette may come off properly. Music we
have ; instruments we have : tell us only how we ought to
place ourselves."

But the Nightingale replies:

" To be a musician, one must have a quicker intelligence
and finer ear than you possess. You, my friends, may place
yourselves just as you like, but you will never become
musicians."

—From W. R. S. Ralston's Krilof and his Fables.

44 ,The Nineteenth Century

DAMIAN'S FISHSOUP

" Well, neighbour, now you are a brick!
Come, try some more."

" Neighbour, I 'm bursting quite."- " No humbug, quick-
One plateful let me pour:

Real fishsoup, see what soup, done to a £"•

" But that 's my third."—" Hush! here we count nor plates
nor glasses —

With a good appetite all passes:

Digestion 's good for sleep, you see.

'T is tempting, 't is a very jelly;

Look at the amber that its surface coats,
Indulge, old chum, unto thy heart's content!

See there, 't is bream, here sterlet choice that floats!
That liver there for thee was meant.

Another spoonful ! — Wife, thy reverence make ! —

One small one more, and for my sake! "

Thus feasted Damian once his old friend Neddy;

No time to breathe or talk, kept to it steady.

Down Neddy's face had long been trickling rain,

But, yielding unto fate, his plate he hands again;

And, summoning his strength remaining,
He swallows all.—" Now, that a friend I call,"
Exulting Damian cries; "why on excuses fall

To spare my cheer ? Then once more show your training ! ' *

Then hapless Neddy, who

Doted on fish, at this aggression new,

Seizing his coat,

Stick, and capote,

Ran straight and swiftly to his own street door,

And ne'er set foot in Damian' s parlour more.

Good author, happy thou in gift beyond dispute;
But, if thou hast not learned yet to be mute,
Boring unwilling ears to suit
Nor time nor place, be sure— thy verse or prose
More sickening e'en than Damian's fishsoup grows.

—From I. H. Harrison's Kriloff's Original Fables.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov 45

THE SWAN, THE PIKE, AND THE CRAB

Whene'er companions don't agree,

They work without accord;
And naught but trouble doth result,

Although they all work hard.

One day a Swan, a Pike, a Crab,

Resolved a load to haul.
All three were harnessed to the cart,

And pulled together all.
But though they pulled with all their might,
That cart-load on the bank stuck tight.

The Swan pulled upwards to the skies,

The Crab did backwards crawl,
The Pike made for the water straight:

This proved no use at all.

Now, which of them was most to blame

'T is not for me to say,
But this I know, — the load is there

Unto this very day.

— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

THE WON AND THE WOLF

A hungry Lion on a lamb was feeding,

When a poor dog passed by,
And, with a patient look of meekness pleading,
Shared in the banquet, while the royal beast

Smiled at his ignorant simplicity.
A Wolf looked on, and said: " And surely I

May have a portion of the prey, — at least,
Indeed, I '11 try."

He came, — came boldly: when the Lion saw
His purpose, he upraised his kingly paw,
Smote him to earth, and left him there to die.

46 , The Nineteenth Century

There 's some excuse for inexperience;
But none for daring, insolent pretence.

— From National Gazette and Literary Register,
Philadelphia, September 3, 1825.

THE CLOUD

Over the thirsty plains a pregnant Cloud

Rolled on its forward way;
Scorning the cliffs whose summit proud

Beneath it lay ;
While to the overflowing sea
It poured its waters forth rejoicingly.
4 ' Am I not liberal ? " to the Mountain cried
The Cloud, while the swift torrents swelled the tide.
" Liberal ! The panting field and sun-dried plain
Asked for one drop, one single drop, in vain,"
Exclaimed the Mountain; " liberal, indeed,
To those who asked no favour, — felt no need! "

—Ib.

THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR AND THE SEA.

The waves had whelmed the venturous bark,
And dashed the shipwrecked seaman to the shore ;
He turned himself, impatient at the roar,
And cried, ' ' Perfidious Sea !
Why didst thou lure me, smiling tranquilly,
To such a fate, so desolate and dark ? "
The Ocean-god awoke, and frowning said :
" Hurl not thy vain reproaches at my head;

My waters calmly ebb and flow,
Till the land-warring tempests break their rest,
Go ! to the storm- winds be thy plaints addressed,
Go! to the whirlwind, go! "

—Ib.

Aleks£ndr Efimovich Izm&ylov. (1779-1831.)

Izmaylov was for a short time vice-governor of Tver and Arkhan-
gelsk. He published several periodicals, to which he contributed

Aleksandr Efimovich Izmaylov 47

sentimental novels in Karamzm's style. He wrote a number of
fables in a somewhat coarse manner, which earned for him the title
of " an author not for ladies."

The Drunkard's Vow is given in Russian Fabulists, in Fraser's
Magazine, vol. xxv., 1842 ; The Drunkard's Answer, The Ladder,
The Donkey and the Horse are given in Wilson's Russian Lyrics.
An epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian
Literary Society, No. 9.

THE DRUNKARD'S VOW

A toper made a solemn vow he never more would touch,
Or punch, or grog, or spirits mixed, or any compounds such.
Yet though to make 't was easy, to keep so strict a vow,
To prove an easy matter was not likely, you '11 allow.
Soon after was our tippler seen reeling 'long the street.
" How now! " a neighbour cried, " why, you scarce can keep

your feet.

I thought you had forsworn for ever punch and grog ? ' '
" And so I have, nor do I now touch either, you dull dog;
But I keep my vow unbroken by drinking spirits neat"
—From Russian Fabulists, in Fraser's Magazine,
vol. xxv.

THE CANARY AND THE NIGHTINGALE

In a beautiful cage near the window in the garden was a
Canary who sang the livelong day alone. At some distance,
where an avenue of birches led to a bramble bush, a lonely
Nightingale sang through the nights and early in the morn-
ings. Both man and beast and bird, and all that have blood,
feel all-powerful love in spring. The two singers made
each other's acquaintance, and forthwith the Canary forgot
the naughty Parrot in his foppish green uniform for the sake
of the Nightingale. No sweeter bird, in all the world, for
her than the Nightingale, and what a charming voice he
had!

The Nightingale, the favourite of the roses, frequently left
at night his fragrant birches, and flitted near the window
over the flower bed, and in the hope of a reward serenaded
her in the lilac bushes, for he loved the Canary with all his

48 The Nineteenth Century

heart. At first, like the artist he was, he appeared awk-
ward and timid, but at last he made up his mind and, sigh-
ing, explained his burning passion for her. The sentimental
daughter of the Canary Islands, who was yellower than
straw and lemons, blinking, sang out in semitones that the
best of singers was dear to her. The lovers agreed to fly
into the distant forest (they had forgotten to close the cage) ;
so, the heavens favouring them, the bridegroom and bride
started for the wished-for woods. They flew for a long
while, and at last, late in the evening, alighted in a thicket;
they kissed each other and began to sing, — but they had
not eaten since morning. So the bride said to her husband :

" How nice it is to listen to your singing! But, could I
not have a bite of something ? ' '

"Right away, my angel!" and the Nightingale flew
away, as if pursued by a hawk, and returned a minute later:

" O friend of my soul ! Here are little ants, they are very
good ! Here are some ant eggs ' '

" Sir, that is no food for a bird brought up in the capital!
Bring me crackers and candy! "

" Alas, there are none in the woods! "

" No ? Do you expect me to starve ? ' '

" Maybe I shall find some kernels in the field! "

" What ? Do you expect me to peck kernels ? "

And she began to scold her husband, broke her relations
with him, and transferred herself to the Parrot in the garden.

Inexperienced bridegrooms! If you are charmed by a
cultivated maiden who has never been away from the luxuri-
ous capital, — read with her my verses; if she will agree to
eat forget-me-not soup, you may safely marry her.

THE TWO CATS

Vdnka the Cat and Vaska were two brothers; they were
both born and lived in the same house. Vdnka was so lean
that it would frighten you to look at him,— in truth, he was
not rounder than a plank; whereas Vdska was as fat as the
steward, and could barely waddle on account of his obesity;
his fur had the sheen of velvet.

Vasili Trofimovich Naryezhny 49

" We have not the same luck, though we are of one
mother, ' ' said the skeleton to him. * * You know no cares ;
you are never without meat, not even on week-days. You
are free to eat meat, while with me it is always Lent; you
sleep long, while I hardly know of sleep, preserving the
whole house from mice and rats, — yet, with all my zeal, I
am hungry "

" And stupid! " the fat one interrupted him. " Brother,
come to your senses ! Take me for an example, if you want
to be fatter."

" Pray, what am I to do ? "

" Amuse your master, walk on your hind legs in his pre-
sence, dance, leap over his arm when he stretches it out, and
learn all my amusing tricks. Believe me, you will be loved
as well as have your hunger satisfied. Know, silly one, that
he who pleases people in trifles and foolish things never loses
by doing so; but he who labours for their benefit and passes
sleepless nights often stays hungry."

Vasili Trofimovich Naryezhny. (1780-1825.)

Naryezhny was born but a short distance from G6gol's native
place. In 1801 he graduated from the Moscow University, and
entered the army. After that he served in various departments, ris-
ing to the post of Chief of Department. He wrote a tragedy, The
False Demetrius, which was published in 1804 ; in 1814 appeared the
first three volumes of The Russian Gil Bias : the last three volumes
did not get the censor's imprimatur. There is much in the manner
of this Ivittle-Russian author that reminds of G6gol, who availed
himself not only of the genre of his predecessor, but also of the very
subject-matter for his classical creations. The very titles of Nar-
ye'zhny's later works, The Seminarist: A Little-Russian Story, and
The Two Ivans ; or, The Passion for Litigation, recur in a modified
form in G6gol's works. It was only a short time ago that this rela-
tion of the two authors was pointed out.

FROM "THE TWO IVANS; OR, THE) PASSION
FOR LITIGATION"

The day was inclining to its fall, but the merriment in the
house of the hospitable host did not abate. A large number

VOL. II. — 4.

50 The Nineteenth Century

of visitors were not a burden to him. He feasted the men,
and his wife the women. Pan Khariton took the guests
around in the garden, though the September winds had
already brought half of the leaves to the ground; to the
barn, where he figured out how much brandy every stack of
rye would give him; to the cattle yard, where he had occa-
sion to boast of his bulls and cows, goats and wethers. His
spouse showed her friends from the window the flocks of
chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, telling them in detail of
the peculiarities of every cock and hen. Is not that charm-
ing?

When all had gathered again in the room, where the table
was set with earthen wine-jugs filled with steaming spiced
brandy, and the host and guests had placed their cups at
random before them, they heard in the yard the rattle of
wheels and the tramp of horses, and soon appeared in the
assembly a thick-set man of some fifty years, expansive
about his abdomen and broad in his shoulders. His bald
head shone like the full moon. Who was that guest ? The
scribe of the hundred-court, Pan Anuri. All rose respect-
fully, and the host gave him a friendly embrace, offered him
his seat, and set before him his cup of mulled brandy. They
all looked into his eyes, eagerly caught every word of his,
and laughed uproariously when that fool smiled at his own
witticisms.

When three cups had found their way into his entrails, he
stood up akimbo and announced : ' ' What will you give me,
Pan Khariton, for the good news which I bring you from
town ? The judge of the hundred-court said to me, as he
handed me this batch of papers: ' Go, my friend, and place
these papers into the personal hands of Pan Kharit6n ! '
From this I conclude," proceeded Anuri, "that they are
favourable, for I am seldom wrong in my conclusions."

" I understand, I understand!" said Pan Kharit6n, and
went out smiling. Anuri had barely gotten away with the
fourth cup, when Pan Kharit6n appeared with some gifts
and offered him a new hat of the best cowhide, new boots,
permeated by the purest tar, and a clay pipe, the work of the

Vasili Trofimovich Naryezhny 51

first Poltava potter. Pan Anuri received the offerings with
condescension and hastened to his two-wheeled cart to de-
posit them there, after which he entered the room with a
large sealed batch of papers, handed it respectfully to Pan
Kharit6n, and seated himself in his old place. Pan Khariton
cursorily glanced at every paper and said: "After all the
troubles I have had, my eyes have grown dim. Be so kind,
Pan Anuri, as to read them. The decree of the hundred-
court is no secret. ' '

Pan Anuri took the documents with much dignity, selected
from them the judgment, put on his eyeglasses, and began
to read : ' * Pan Khariton Zan6za appears as the plaintiff
against Pan Ivan Zubar and Pan Ivan Khtara, claiming
that they had burnt down his dove-cots with all the pigeons,
of which there were more than two hundred ; the two Pans
Iv&n, however, declare that the apiary of the elder Ivan, con-
taining not less than fifty hives, has been destroyed.

1 * The hundred-court, having taken into consideration all
circumstances, as is meet, decrees:

1. "Granting that during the fire of Pan Khariton' s dove-
cot all the pigeons, of which there were more than two
hundred, /. e.y two hundred and one, have perished, and
estimating the price of each pigeon at the maximum of a
farthing, his damage amounts to fifty kopeks and a farthing.
But since the two Pans Ivan declare under oath that they
have used as food only twenty birds, the real damage which
they have done amounts only to five kopeks; the rest of the
pigeons either flew away, or were burnt. Whereas nobody
tied any of the aforesaid pigeons or cut their wings, they
might have flown away, and thus they were roasted by their
own free will.

2. "Pan Ivan the elder has lost fifty hives that at the time
were full of honey. Upon inquiry it is found that such a
hive is worth sixty kopeks, and thus his damage amounts to
thirty roubles. Excluding from that sum five kopeks, Pan
Kharit6n has caused to Pan Ivan the elder a real damage of
twenty-nine roubles and ninety-five kopeks, which sum is
without delay to be turned over within three days to Scribe

52 The Nineteenth Century

Anuri. Of this sum twenty-eight roubles and ninety-five
kopeks will be retained for the necessary expenses of the
hundred-court; the remaining rouble is to be turned over to
Pan Ivan the elder, he signing a receipt for it."

Who will describe Pan Kharit6n's fury! He cracked the
knuckles of his fingers, stamped the floor with his feet, and
rolled his eyes terribly. Finally he jumped up like one be-
side himself, ran to the perplexed scribe, grabbed the fatal
judgment out of his hands, tore it to shreds, and threw it
into the eyes of the ambassador of the hundred-court. On all
sides was heard a noise and murmuring. Pan Khariton paid
no attention to anything; he shouted to the scribe: " Why
have you been riding about upon my horses ? Eh ? Why
have you been tilling your soil with my steers, and sowing it
with my grain ? Eh ? Why have you been devouring my
sheep and wethers, and making fur coats out of their hides ?
Eh ? Why have you been taking my money, you destroyers
of souls, good-for-nothings, robbers ? Why have you been
extorting money from me, I say, if you had no intention to
stand by me? Eh?"

With these words, to the horror of all the guests and their
families, — for at the thunderous roar of Pan Khariton all
the women and daughters of the guests had made their ap-
pearance,— he pulled Pan Anuri by his collar, dragged him
out into the yard, lifted him up, banged him into his cart,
jammed the reins into his hands, gave him two mighty blows
in his occiput, raised from the ground a birch club and be-
gan to belabour, now the horse, now Anuri. The poor animal
flew out of the yard into the road as fast as it could, and Pan
Kharit6n ran out after the cart and shouted to the scribe:
" Tell the fool of a hundred-judge and the good-for-nothing
members of the hundred-court that they are transgressors of
the law, and that I shall go to-morrow to Poltava to cite
them before the regimental chancery! "

Having obtained such a famous victory over their worst
enemy in the matter of the burnt-down dove-cot and de-
stroyed apiary, the two Pans Ivdn were travelling in triumph

Vasili Trofimovich Naryezhny 53

from the town to their abode, when they espied in the middle
of the road near the tavern the cart, and they immediately
knew to whom it belonged.

"That 's fortunate," said Ivan the elder: "we '11 take
the rouble that belongs to us from Anuri and will give him
a good treat/'

They entered the tavern and sure enough saw Pan Anuri
sitting over a cup, but in a most dejected attitude. * ' What 's
the matter, Pan Anuri?" cried out Ivan the elder: "The
cup is at your very mouth, and you look so sad, — those
things do not fit together. Jew, give us two more cups, of
anything you please, so it 's of the best spirits! Really,
you, Pan Anuri, are a great fellow and pretty slick ! Who
would have thought you could manage in so short a time
that riotous head of worthless Zan6za ? "

' * I should say I did manage ! ' ' said Anuri with a bitter
smile and, filling his cup, drank from it with unmistakable
disgust. The two Ivans looked at his strange action in
wonderment, and pressed him with all kinds of questions.

Anuri told them all in detail. Having listened with un-
disguised attention to this incident which had been unheard
of in Little-Russia from its beginning, the two Ivans were
heartily glad, and the elder one clapped his hands. Anuri
showed a very dissatisfied look and asked:

"Is it possible that you, whom I regarded as my friends,
can rejoice at my having had my occiput boxed and at the
descent of full- weighted blows upon my back ? "

" Not at all," answered Ivan the elder: " we rejoice and
are merry not because you, our friend and go-between, have
received a fine drubbing, but because it has been adminis-
tered to the worshipful scribe of the hundred-court by the
bold hand of furious Zanoza. We hope that this wrong-
doing will be his surer undoing than massacred coneys,
maimed geese, ducks, sheep and, finally, the destroyed
apiary ! It is no trifling matter to dare box the occiput and
warm up ten times with a birch rod Pan Anuri, a man grown
grey and bald among papers, ink, and pens! "

" He 's warmed me up just twelve times," said Pan Anuri

54 ' The Nineteenth Century

proudly, " and though he missed me the thirteenth time, it
ought to be counted a blow all the same. Besides, he has
disgraced the judge and the hundred-court with the foulest
curses, and in the presence of an immense throng of noble-
men and ladies; he dragged me through the whole room,
which is the same as if he dragged me through the whole
house . — then by my collar which reaches up to my occiput,
hence it is the same as if he had pulled me along by my
hair. O Pans Ivdn ! If you rej oice because Khariton Zan6za
will be repaid for this godless deed with interest, I am glad !
Oh, if he had twice the property he possesses, it would not
be enough to pay me for the disgrace and battery. No ! he
will have to become acquainted with the city prison and find
out the taste of stale bread and water. I give you my hand
that this will happen, and before long ! ' '

Vasili Andr6evich Zhuk6vski. (1783-1852.)

Zhuk6vski was the son of a landed proprietor of Tula, by the name
of Bunin, and of a captive Turkish woman, but received his own name
from his godfather, who happened to be living at Bunin's house.
After the death of his father he was adopted by Mrs. Bunin, who
cared for him as for her own son. He was first educated in the pub-
lic school of Tula, but was requested to be removed on account of
dulness. He was then privately brought up in the house of his god-
mother, where, at the age of twelve, he composed and acted two
dramas — one of them from Roman history. In 1796 he was taken to
Moscow to be placed in the boarding-school that was connected with
the Moscow University. He there came in contact with a number of
talented young men who later made their mark in literature, and
under the inspiring influence of the school began, at the early age of
fourteen, to contribute poems to the periodical press. His earliest
verses contained frequent references to death and the cemetery, and
when, a few years later, he lost a friend, he remembered him by
translating Gray's Elegy. That was the beginning of his literary
fame. He then translated a large number of poetical productions
from the German, French, and English, invariably choosing melan-
choly subjects, as more adapted to his sentimental, reflective nature.

It was chiefly Zhuk6vski who transplanted the German Romantic-
ism to Russia, but his deserts are not only in having abandoned the
pseudo-classic style of poetry : he was the first to recognise the im-
portant educational value of poetry, and its moral power, which made

Vasili Andreevich Zhuk6vski 55

it the equal of religion, or, as Zhuk6vski put it, "Poetry is the ter-
restrial sister of heavenly religion," and " Poetry is virtue." He
achieved his fame by his ballad Svyetl&na. The Minstrel of the
Russian Camp was written by him at the campfires during the War
of 1812 : it produced a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among
the whole army. He soon became a great favourite at the Court, and
in 1817 was chosen as teacher of Russian to the German bride of
Crown Prince Nicholas. In 1841 he left Russia never to return,
and died in Baden-Baden in 1852. His body was taken to Russia,
where he was buried by the side of Karamzin.

Sir John Bowring gives in Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I. :
The Mariner, bolus's Harp Song (Say, ye gentle breezes, say), Ro-
mance; in Part II. : The Minstrel in the Russian Camp, Svyetl&na
(under the name of Catherine}, Theon and ^Eschines, The Bard ; a
prose version of Svyetl&na, under the name of Christmas Omens, by
W. D. Lewis, was given in The Atlantic Souvenir, Philadelphia,
1828 ; another translation, under the title of The Eve of St. Silvester,
from the Russian of Tzobovsk (?), by J. C. M., was given in Dublin
University Magazine, vol. xxxi., 1848; C. T. Wilson, in Russian
Lyrics, gives The Flower, extract from The Minstrel in the Russian
Camp, Svyetl&na ; in the Library of the World's best Literature are
given N. H. Dole's translations of Happiness in Slumber and The
Coming of Spring Night.

SVYETI.ANA1

St. Silvester's evening hour

Calls the maidens round :
Shoes to throw behind the door,

Delve the snowy ground.
Peep behind the window there,

Burning wax to pour;
And the corn for chanticleer

Reckon three times o'er.
In the water-fountain fling
Solemnly the golden ring,

Earrings, too, of gold;
Kerchief white must cover them
While we 're chanting over them

Magic songs of old.
1 Changed by Sir John Bowring in the poem to Catherine.

56 ,The Nineteenth Century

Feebly through the vapours shine

Moonbeams on the hill ;
Silently sat Catherine,

Sorrowful and still.
" Maiden, why so pensive ? We

Fain thy voice would hear —
Come and join our revelry!

Take the ring, thou dear !
Sing, ' Make haste and melt, and bring,
Goldsmith ! Come with golden ring,

Golden wreath for Kate !
Ring to deck her hand of snow,
Wreath to bloom upon her brow

At the altar-gate.* "

" I can sing no choral song

While my love 's away,
For my days are sad and long, —

Gloomier every day.
Left alone, — a year is past, —

Not a line to send, —
Oh, my life is but a waste,

Severed from my friend !
Hast thou then forgotten me ?
Tell me, wanderer ! can it be ?

Where 's thy dwelling, where ?
See, I pine 'neath secret smart:
Guardian angel ! Watch my heart, —

Listen to my prayer ! ' '

Covered with a napkin white,

Stood a table there,
Where a mirror, clear and bright,

Shone amidst the glare.
Vacant seats for two were placed, —

" Look within, O look!
'T is the hour of spirits,— haste!

Vasili Andreevich Zhukovski 57

Read Fate's opening book:
To the mirror turn thy eye,
And the door shall silently

Open,— list, 'tis he!
Gently shall thy lover glide,
Seat him by his maiden's side,

And shall sup with thee."

Cath'rine sat before the glass, —

All alone was she,
Watching all the shades that pass,

Shuddering inwardly.
But the glass is dark and drear,

Still as death the room;
Scarce a fading taper there

Flitted midst the gloom.
Oh, how fear her bosom shook!
Backwards then she dared not look !

Dread had dimmed her sight :
And the dying taper's noise,
And the cricket's chirping voice,

Cried,—" 'Tis middle-night! "

Breathless terror chilled her o'er,

And she shades her brow: —
List ! a knock is at the door,

And it opens now:
To the mirror then she turned,

Stupefied with fear;
There two brilliant eyeballs burned,

Ever bent on her.

Horror heaved her breast, when lo!
Gentle accents, sweet and slow,

Glided on her ear:
" All thy wishes are fulfilled,—
All thy spirit's sighs be stilled,—

'T is thy lover, dear!"

58 ,The Nineteenth Century

Cath'rine looked— her lover's arm

Was around her thrown:
" Maiden! Banish all alarm,

We are ever one !
Come! the priest is waiting now,

Life with life to blend;
Torches in the chapel glow,

Bridal songs ascend."
Cath'rine smiled, — her lover led, —
O'er the snow-clad court they sped,

And the portals gain;
There a ready sledge they found, —
Two fleet coursers stamp the ground,

Struggling with the rein.

Onwards! Like the wind they go,

When the storm awakes,
Scattering round them clouds of snow,

While the pathway shakes.
All was dark and wild as night,

Terrible and new;
Mist-wreaths dimmed the pale moon's light,

Plains were drenched in dew.
Fear again possessed the maid,
And in gentlest tones she said,

' ' Speak, my lover true ! ' '
He was silent then, but soon
Turned him to the wintry moon, —

Pale and paler grew.

Through the snow, a mountain's height,
Next the wild steeds passed ;

And a church appeared in sight,
Midst a gloomy waste;

Then a whirlwind burst the door —
Men are there who mourn;

Clouds of incense rolling o'er,

Vasili Andreevich Zhukovski 59

Wax and taper burn.
Lo ! a black sepulchral shroud —
"Dust to dust! " the priest aloud

Chants, — the horses flew
Tow'rds the door, — her agony
Rose, — he spoke no word, — but he

Pale and paler grew.

Clouds of snow ascend again —

LO ! the coursers fly ;
And a raven on the plain

Croaks and passes by;
'T was an awful, ominous sound!

And the moonlight wanes;
Darkness wraps the desert round

O'er the steaming manes.
See ! a glimmering light is there,
And upon the heather bare

Stands a humble shed.
Swifter, swifter flew the car,
Whirled the snow around it far,

But no farther sped.

At the door they stopped anon,

There, a moment stood : —
Steeds, sledge, bridegroom, — all are gone:

All is solitude.
Cath'rine on the waste was left,

Midst dense clouds of snow,
Of her lover now bereft,

To commune with woe:
But she hears a footstep now,
Turns, and sees a taper glow,

Crosses her, and stalks
Trembling to the door, and knocks: —
Of itself the door unlocks, —

In the maiden walks.

60 , The Nineteenth Century

There, upon a winding-sheet,

Lay a mortal bier;
Christ's bright image at its feet

Shone resplendent there.
Whither, whither art thou come,

Maiden, all unblest ?
Thou hast sought a wretched home,

Art a hapless guest !
Cath'rine to the image flies,
Wipes the snow-dust from her eyes,

Bends her down and weeps;
Presses to her breast the cross, —
Thoughts of heaven her soul engross,

And she silence keeps.

All is still ! — The storm is hushed,

Faint the tapers beam,
Light across the chamber rushed, —

Momentary gleam: —
All is wrapped in silence deep

As when visions come.
List ! what gentle rustlings sweep

Through the hallowed room:
Lo ! a dart of silvery white,
Soft and still, with eyes of light,

Tow'rds the mourners springs:
For a moment hovers there,
Then upon her bosom fair

Flaps its beauteous wings.

Silence reigned again. — Can all,

All illusion be ?
Lo! the corpse beneath the pall

Shudders fearfully:
Burst the mantling bier of death,

Throws his shroudings by :
On his brow he wore a wreath,

Frozen was his eye :

Vasili Andreevich Zhukovski 61

From his lips a murmur breaks,
With his hand a sign he makes,

Pointing to the maid :
Trembling she, — she dared not move, —
But the bright and silver dove

On her bosom played;

Fanned her with its gentle wing : —

To the dead man's breast
Then she saw her sweet dove spring, —

There it seemed to rest.
Heaved the icy corpse a sigh,

As in dark despair,
Gnashed his teeth in agony,

Turned his eyes on her.
Paler waxed those lips so pale;
And the fixed eye told the tale

That life's film was broke.
Cath'rine! Lift thy drooping head !
All is o'er, — thy lover 's dead! —

God ! — and she awoke.

Where ? — within the selfsame room

Where the mirror stood: —
Morn was chasing twilight's gloom

With its golden flood;
Chanticleer had clapped his wing,

Sung his early song :
All is bright, — the matin rings, —

Oh, thy dream was long !
lyong indeed, and dreadful too;
And my spirit long shall rue

The dread prophecy !
Tell me, Future's misty night,
Shall my fate be dark or bright,

Bliss or misery ?

Cath'rine in the window sat,
Sorrowful and still :

62 The Nineteenth Century

Tell me, tell me what is that ? —

Mist-cloud on the hill ?
In the sunbeams shines the snow;

Leaps the frozen dew:
List ! I hear the bells below,

And the horses too.
Lo! they come, the sledge is near, —
Now the driver's voice I hear, —

They have passed the grove: —
Fling the gates wide open, fling —
Who 's the guest the coursers bring ?

Who ?— 'T is thou, my love!

Cath'rine, tell me now! The dream —

Is the dream forgot ?
Youths may faithful be who seem

Faithless, — may they not ?
When the light of love hath lent

Brightness to his eye;
When his lips are eloquent; —

Timid maid ! Reply !
Open now the temple-gate,
Spring on wings of joy elate,

Truth, we honour thee !
Pour the glass, and join the hymn,
Ne'er may days of darkness dim

Youth's fidelity.

Thou dost smile, sweet maid! But deem,

Deem it worth a thought,
For that memorable dream

Stores of wisdom brought.
Thou dost smile again, — but know,

It had lessons holy:
Fame, it told thee, was but — show;
* Worldly wisdom — folly.
This my song was meant to say,

Vasili Andreevich Zhuk6vski 63

Hope and trust should guide our way,

Maid! there 's no mistaking:
This the genuine moral seems,
Miseries are only dreams.

Joy — is the awaking.

O my Cath'rine! never dwell

On that dream of gloom :
Heaven ! build up her citadel,

There may grief ne'er come,
Not a cloud her joy o'ershade,

Not a joy decay;
Holy is that gentle maid

As the light of day.
Ne'er be it obscured by woe,
Let her days of comfort flow

Like a forest river !
And let joy, with smiles serene,
Be as it hath ever been,

Her bright guide for ever !

— From Sir John Bowling's Specimens of the
Russian Poets, Part II.

THE MINSTREL IN THE RUSSIAN CAMP

Now silence wraps the battlefield !

The tents with lights are gleaming;
And lo! the bright moon's silver shield

In the calm heaven is beaming.
Fill, fill the glass of rapture yet

In unity full-hearted ;
In wine the bloody strife forget,

The grief for the departed !
The glasses' ruby stream to drain

Is glory's pride and pleasure —
Wine ! conqueror thou of care and pain,

Thou art the hero's treasure.

64 ,The Nineteenth Century

Now to the warriors of old time,

The strong in fight and glory !
These warriors and their deeds sublime

Are lost in distant story !
The grave hath gathered up their dust,

Their homes, — the storm hath razed them;
Their helmets are devoured by rust,

And silent those who praised them:
But in their children live their fires,

We tread the land that bore them,
And see the shadows of our sires

With all their triumphs o'er them.

Oh, come ! in all your brightness, come,

And smile complacent, near us;
lyook from your high and misty home,

Encourage us and hear us.
O Svyatoslav! time's injured son,

Thy path an eagle's flying:
' * There is no shame in dying — On !

There is no shame in dying ! ' '
And Donsk6y, thou ! courageous man,

Midst heathen foes we find thee;
Destruction leading in thy van,

And naught but death behind thee.

Thou, Peter! thou, the hero's crown,

"Poltdva!" is repeated:
Thy foes have thrown their sabres down,

Thee, all the world has greeted.
What ? Robbers, would you build your thron<

Upon our cities' ruin ?
Thy horse and rider fell — begone!

For vengeance is pursuing.
Go hide thee in thy native woods,

There by ambition smother;
Fate drives thee to their solitudes,

Yes! thou, the rebel's brother.

Vasili Andreevich Zhukovski 65

Who is that white-haired hero, who

That northern more than Roman ?
His penetrating glance looks through

The phalanx of the foeman;
From yonder clouds what shadowy rows

Are tow'rds his footsteps turning ?
The spirits of the Alpine snows

Are wailing loud and mourning.
Franks and Sarmatians, at his view,

Death's icy paleness borrow;
Well they may fear him, well may rue, —

It is the great Suvorov !

Hail, sons of ages long gone by !

Your glories are recorded ;
We follow you to victory,

Like you to be rewarded.
We see your ranks,— they lead us on, —

The foe retreats before us;
We scatter death, as ye have done,

While ye are smiling o'er us.
Drawn sword, and flowing glass, elate

We look to our Creator !
1 ' And death for death, and hate for hate,

And curses on the traitor."

This glass then to our country's joys,

Ne'er may our hearts feel colder;
The scenes of mirth while we were boys,

Of love, when we grew older !
Our country's plains, our country's sky,

The streams that flow beneath it;
The memories of infancy,

And all the thoughts that wreathe it
With joyous hopes and visions blest, —

Dear shrine of our affection,
How glows our heart, how beats our breast,

When beams the recollection !

VOL. II. 5.

66 The Nineteenth Century

That is our country, there our home,

There wife and babes attend us ;
And oft their prayers towards us roam,

And oft to Heaven commend us !
There dwell our plighted, chosen ones;

How bright their memory flashes !
Our monarchs' dust, our monarchs' thrones,

And there our fathers' ashes.
For them we fight, for them we rove,

For them have all forsaken;
And may our land's undying love

In our sons' breasts awaken !

Now to the Tsar that rules the Russ,

And be his sceptre glorious;
His throne an altar is to us, —

We swear to be victorious.
The oath is heard, — 't is stamped in blood,—

'T is sworn, — there 's no returning;
Our swords shall make our promise good,

Our hearts with love are burning.
Each Russ a son of victory,

To duty's ranks we throng us;
Let every craven coward fly,

For fear was ne'er among us.

One glass to vengeance ! In the fray

" Heaven for the right! " our voices,
And " death or victory! " proudly say;

And victory's self rejoices.
Oh, count not on your numbers, foe !

In vain ye boast your numbers ;
Our march is like the torrent's flow,

Which never, never slumbers.
We have no treasures, but we bring

Our arrows and our lances,

Ivin Ivanovich Kozlov 67

And round us desolation fling,
And death is in our glances.

The Robber! he had spread his power

Around our Moskva's borders;
And from our Kremlin's sacred tower

He issued forth his orders.
' * I trample on the base-born clay,

Which folly's pride assembles,
And prince and subject both obey."

Insulting one ! — he trembles.
For Vengeance wakes her from her rest,

And arms her with her torches,
Heaves ruin on the tyrant's breast,

And drives him from our porches.

Now bring thy slavish princes, now,

To our ice-girded nation ;
And lead them o'er our paths of snow

To horror and starvation.
Come, Winter! rouse thee from thy bed,

And close our country's portals.
Oh, see ! he strews the land with dead,

With piles of frozen mortals.
Now, Robber! look what thou hast done;

Come, for the strife prepare thee !
The»land we fight on is our own, —

God's vengeance, wretch, is near thee!

— From Sir John Bowring's Specimens of the
Russian Poets, Part II.

Ivdn Ivdnovich Kozl6v. (1779-1840.)

After having served for some time in the army, Kozl6v in 1798
entered the Civil Service, living in Moscow and later in St. Peters-
burg. In 1818 he was struck by paralysis, which deprived him of
the use of his legs, and three years later he became totally blind.
Though he had long been on friendly terms with Zhuk6vski, he
never thought of devoting himself to literature. But the calamity
that had overtaken him compelled him to concentrate himself, and

68 The Nineteenth Century

the result was the evolution of his poetical genius. He had learned
French and Italian before, and, though blind, acquired the German
and English languages so perfectly that he could recite by heart whole
pages from the great writers, whom he also translated into Russian.
His first poetical efforts were some verses in praise of Zhuk6vski and
Byron, but he gained his great reputation by his The Black Monk,
written in 1824, which enjoyed the same popularity among the senti-
mental souls of the twenties that Poor Liza (see p. 27) had had in the
beginning of the century. This was soon followed by Princess Natalya
Borisovna Dolgor&ki (see vol. i., p. 233) and a large number of minor
poems that are distinguished for their elegiac and deep religions
tone.

In W. D. Lewis's The Bakchesarian Fountain, Philadelphia, 1841,
is given his Solitude ; T. B. Shaw translated his Kiev in Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine, 1844 ; in C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics are
given The Village Orphan, The Wreck, The Dream of the Betrothed,
and Chernetz (The Black Monk} ; in the Library of the World's Best
Literature is N. H. Dole's translation of The Vesper Bells.

SOLITUDE

Upon a hill, which rears itself midst plains extending wide,

Fair flourishes a lofty oak in beauty's blooming pride;

This lofty oak in solitude its branches wide expands,

All lonesome on the cheerless height like sentinel it stands.

Whom can it lend its friendly shade, should Sol with fervour
glow?

And who can shelter it from harm, should tempests rudely
blow?

No bushes green, entwining close, here deck the neighbour-
ing ground,

No tufted pines beside it grow, no osiers thrive around.

Sad e'en to trees their cheerless fate in solitude if grown,

And bitter, bitter is the lot for youth to live alone!

Though gold and silver much is his, how vain the selfish
pride !

Though crowned with glory's laurelled wreath, with whom
that crown divide ?

When I with an acquaintance meet he scarce a bow affords,

And beauties, half saluting me, but grant some transient
words.

Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov 69

On some I look myself with dread, whilst others from me fly,
But sadder still the uncherished soul when Fate's dark hour

draws nigh;
Oh! where my aching heart relieve when griefs assail me

sore?
My friend, who sleeps in the cold earth, comes to my aid no

more!

No relatives, alas ! of mine in this strange clime appear,
No wife impart' s love's fond caress, sweet smile, or pitying

tear;

No father feels joy's thrilling throb, as he our transport sees;
No gay and sportive little ones come clambering on my

knees; —

Take back all honours, wealth and fame, the heart they can-
not move,
And give instead the smiles of friends, the tender look of

love!
— From W. D. Lewis's The Bakchesarian Fountain.

KIEV

O Kiev ! where religion ever seemeth

To light existence in our native land;
Where o'er Pecherski's dome the bright cross gleameth,

Like some fair star, that still in heaven doth stand;
Where, like a golden sheet, around thee streameth

Thy plain, and meads that far away expand ;
And by thy hoary well, with ceaseless motion,
Old Dnieper's foaming swell sweeps on to ocean.

How oft to thee in spirit have I panted,

O holy city, country of my heart !
How oft, in vision, have I gazed enchanted

On thy fair towers, — a sainted thing thou art! —
By Ldvra's1 walls or Dnieper's wave, nor wanted

A spell to draw me from this life apart;

1 Name of certain monasteries.

70 The Nineteenth Century

In thee my country I behold, victorious,
Holy and beautiful, and great and glorious.

The moon her soft ray on Pecherski poureth,
Its domes are shining in the river's wave;

The soul the spirit of the past adoreth,

Where sleeps beneath thee many a holy grave:

Vladimir's shade above thee calmly soareth,
Thy towers speak of the sainted and the brave;

Afar I gaze, and all in dreamy splendour

Breathes of the past, — a spell sublime and tender.

There fought the warriors in the field of glory,
Strong in the faith, against their country's foe;

And many a royal flower yon palace hoary,
In virgin loveliness, hath seen to blow.

And Boydn sang to them the noble story,
And secret rapture in their breast did glow;

Hark! midnight sounds, — that brazen voice is dying, —

A day to meet the vanished day is flying.

Where are the valiant ? — the resistless lances, —
The brands that were as lightning when they waved ?

Where are the beautiful, whose sunny glances
Our fathers, with such potency, enslaved ?

Where is the bard, whose song no more entrances ?
Ah ! that deep bell hath answered what I craved :

And thou alone, by these grey walls, O river !

Murmurest, Dnieper, still, and flow'st for ever.

— Transl. by T. B. Shaw, in Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine, 1844 (vol. Iv).

FROM "THK BLACK MONK"

I. — THE MONASTERY

Beyond Kiev, where the broad Dnieper boils and booms
between steep banks, near a grove, upon a high hill, stands
the hermits' abode. Around it is a crenelated wall, with

Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov 71

four towers in the corners, and in the midst, — the temple of
the Lord with gilded cupolas. A row of cells, a dark corri-
dor, a chapel at the holy gates, with a miracle-working
image, and nearby a spring of cool water, whose medicinal
stream bubbles under the shade of a century linden tree.

The evening darkness is in the misty field; the twilight is
dimming in the heavens; the song is not heard in the
meadows; the flocks are not seen in the vales. The horn
will not be blown in the forest, — no one will come; only at
times the bell tinkles in the distance upon the highway; no
fires are to be seen upon the fishermen's boats on the Dnieper.
The midnight moon has risen, and the bright stars are shin-
ing ; the clearings, the woods, the waters are asleep. The
fateful hour has struck upon the tower, — the hermitage is
merged in sleep, — and all around is peace and quiet.

II. — THE CONFESSION OF THE BLACK MONK

" I left my deserted country. Alone, in despair, in tears,
I wandered around with my orphaned soul in distant defiles
and woods. Gloomy clefts and mountains heard my groan,
my wail, my plaints with terror, for seven years. Sullen, mel-
ancholy, wild, I pined away, dreaming an old dream, and
sobbed for what is not. The shades of night, the mountain
torrent, the whistling of the storm and the howl of the wind
secretly united with my murky thought, with my unquench-
able yearning. And sorrow was a delight, a sacred relic of
former days; it seemed to me that through my suffering I
did not altogether part from it.

"Where the heart loves, where it suffers, — there is also
our merciful God ; He gives the cross, and He also sends us
hope with the cross. In these seven hard, stormy years
there has flashed for me a consoling light. Once, at even-
ing tide, I sat gloomy near the river; the star-flaming vault
of heaven, the quiet glimmer of the moon, the rustling of
the leaves, the plashing of the waves silvered by the moon,
involuntarily held my soul captive. Everything attracted
me by its mysterious beauty to a world of bliss.

72 ' The Nineteenth Century

" My crushed spirit awoke: ' Creator of all! My babe
with my unforgettable mate dwell in Thy holy abode, and,
perchance, I shall be with them, and they there for ever
mine!' L,ove understands miracles: my heart trembled
hopefully in some mysterious expectation. I lifted my eyes
to the skies, dared to implore them with tears, — and it
seemed to me that for an answer was given me that calm
ocean with its imperishable stars. Since then, my father,
have I found consolation in my misery itself, and I have
hoped by my heavy cross to earn my union with her.
Though still, at times, I shed tears, yet hope assuages them,
and quiet grief has taken place of bitter sorrow. Flaming
with faith, I have forgotten my misfortune and the villain:
she with her babe in heaven appeared to my heart in dreams
of paradise. My soul rose to her, and my mind was full of
this: I wished to be as pure as she, and I gladly bid life
farewell. But I wanted to die in my native home. I began
to pine away in mountains of other lands. I wanted to cast
my last glance upon our woods and our dales, to see the
country which was full of her, and our village house, and
the garden, and the blue waves of the Dnieper, and the
church upon the mound where in the shade of the birches
sleeps their dust, and the glowing evening sky over their
quiet grave.

"Ah, what happened to my soul when suddenly, in all its
sacred beauty, before me lay the landscape of my native Kfev
fields ! As before they were green, the waves of the Dnieper
boomed as formerly, the same forest lay dim in the distance,
the same songs were sung in the fields, and everything was
the same in my native land, but she alone was not there.
Everywhere familiar valleys, brooks, mounds, and plains, in
an enchanting quiet, appeared to me on all sides, and brought
back my brighter years; but with a poisoned soul, a stranger
in my own land, I greeted them with tears and disconsolate
melancholy.

' * I walked. The day was inclining to the evening, and
suddenly a rustic temple of the Lord stood before my fright-
ened eyes. Beside myself, I approached the grave where

Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov 73

my son, my wife, — my whole life lay buried. I barely
touched the ground with my feet, as if fearing to disturb
their eternal slumber. I repressed a deep groan within my
breast, that their rest be not broken. My saddened spirit
dared not give vent to my impassioned agitation. It seemed
to me that upon their grave I breathed a sacred air. A
wondrous feeling came over me, and with an unearthly hope
I softly bent my knees, and prayed, and wept, and loved."

Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov. (1787-1855.)

Bdtyushkov received his education in the boarding-schools of St.
Petersburg, from which he took away a good knowledge of French,
German, and Italian, and little else, especially since all his schooling
ended with his sixteenth year. He was then ushered into the circle
of literary men by a relative of his, M. N. Murave* v (see vol. i. p. 395),
who also interested him in the ancient classics, among whom Bdt-
yushkov admired most and imitated Horace and Tibullus. In 1806
he was seized by the prevailing patriotic enthusiasm, after the dis-
aster of Austerlitz, and joined the army. He was seriously wounded,
but in 1813 he again took part in the campaign against Napoleon.
During his stay in Germany he became intimately acquainted with
the German literature, which he began to prefer to the French and
Latin. He returned to Russia over England and Sweden. In 1818
he received a diplomatic post at Naples, which gave him an oppor-
tunity of making himself familiar with the country of his beloved
author, Tasso. He soon returned home, where he was up to his
death, for a period of thirty-three years, lost to Russian letters, hav-
ing, like his mother before him, become hopelessly insane. No other
poet had given such promise as Bdtyushkov, and even Pushkin re-
garded him as his teacher. His fame rests mainly on his Dying
Tasso and The Friend's Shadow, the Anacreontic character of the
other poems and the absence of a Russian motive having otherwise
almost obliterated his fame.

In Sir John Bo wring's Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.,
there is a translation of his To My Penates, and in Part II., To F. F.
Kokoshkin, The Farewell, The Friend's Shadow, Love in a Boat,
The Prisoner, To the Rhine. What purports to be a translation of
his Dying Tasso is given in The Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.

THE FRIEND'S SHADOW

From Albion's misty isle across the waves I sped me:
It looked as if interred beneath a leaden sea,

74 ' The Nineteenth Century

And gathering round our bark the halcyon's music led me,

While all the crew rejoiced in their sweet melody.

The dancing surge, the evening breezes falling,

And through the sails and shrouds those breezes whistling

thrill,

And to the watch the active helmsman calling,
The watch, who, midst the roar, sleeps tranquilly and still.
All seemed to rock itself to gentle thought;
Like an enchanted one, I, from the mast, looked forth,
And through the night and through the mist I sought,
I sought the star beloved of my domestic north.
Then into memory melted every feeling, —
My soul had sanctified my home of joy and peace,
And the sea raging, and the zephyrs gently stealing,
Covered my eyelids o'er with self-forgetfulness.
Then dreams with other dreams were blended,
And lo ! — there stood, was it a dream ? — the form
Of that dear friend who his career had ended
Nobly, amidst the thundering battle storm.
He stood upon the mist, and smiled, — his face,
Fresh as the morn and bloodless, shining
Like the young spring in gaiety and grace,
Even as an angel from high heaven declining: —
" Comrade of better time! and is it thou ?
And is it thou ? " I cried, " thou hero bright!
Did I not in the fury of the fight
Attend thee, and when thou hadst fallen below
Make thy new grave, — and on a neighbouring tree
Write with my sword thy feats of bravery,
And followed thy cold ashes to their bed,
And hallowed it with prayers, and with tears watered ?
Speak, unforgotten one, speak ! Was it a deceit ?
Is all that 's past a dream, a cheating dream ?
A dream that corpse, a dream that grave, that sheet
Wrapt round thee,— were they not ? did they but seem ?
Oh, but one word! Let that tongue's melody
Yet sweetly fall on my transported ear:
O unforgotten one! Stretch out to me

Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov 75

Thy old right hand of friendship, stretch it here ! ' '

I sprung towards him, — Oh ! the mists had dimmed my eye, —

He vanished like a shade, a lock of airy smoke, —

Dispersed in the wide azure of the sky,

And I, arousing from my dream, awoke.

Beneath the wing of stillness all was sleeping;

The very winds, the very waves at rest ;

And scarce a breath upon the sea was creeping;

The pale moon swam along upon the white cloud's breast.

But I was troubled, peace had left my soul, —

I stretched my hands tow'rds him, whom I no more could

see,—

I called on him, whom I could not control, —
On thee, beloved one ! best of friends, on thee !

— From Sir John Bowring's Specimens of the
Russian Poets, Part II.

THE DYING TASSO

What solemnity does ancient Rome prepare? Whither
rush the nation's noisy waves ? For whom these fragrant
fumes of incense and of myrrh, and everywhere the vases
full of odorous herbs ? Wherefore above the streets of the
universal city, from the Tiber's banks up to the Capitol,
midst flowers and laurels, are fluttering costly carpets and
the purple ?

Wherefore this noise ? Wherefore the timbrel's sound and
thunder ? Is it of gladness or of victory the herald ? Why
with the standard gains the house of prayer the mitred
apostolic vicar ? For whom this glittering crown he holds, —
a priceless gift of grateful Rome ? For whom this triumph ?
For thee, immortal singer, for thee this gift, O singer of
" Jerusalem."

The din of joy has reached the cell where in death agony
Torquato lies, where o'er the sufferer's immortal head is
borne the spirit of winged death. Neither tears of friend-
ship, nor the prayers of the monks, nor honours' tardy due, —
these will not curb indomitable fate that spares not even

76 The Nineteenth Century

the great. Half-shattered, he sees the threatening hour,
hails it with joy, and, — alluring swan! — bids life good-bye
and utters these last words:

' ' My friends, let me behold Rome the magnificent, where
an untimely grave awaits the poet, that my eyes may see
your hills and smoke, O ancient hearths of the Quirites ! O
sacred ground of miracles and heroes ! O glorious ruins and
O glorious dust ! Azure and purple of cloudless skies, you
poplars, ancient olives, and thou, eternal Tiber, wellspring
of all the nations, grave of the bones of the world's citizens,
— you, you I greet within these sombre walls, where I lie
doomed to an untimely end !

" 'T is done! I stand o'er the abyss of destiny, shall not
applauded reach the Capitol, and laurels of fame upon my
feeble head will not assuage the singer's bitter fate. From
earliest youth a shuttlecock of men, I was an exile from my
very childhood; a poor wanderer under the voluptuous
heaven of my Italy, I have experienced all vicissitudes of
fate. Where was my bark not borne by the waves ? Where
found it rest ? Where wet I not my daily bread with tears
of grief? Sorrento ! cradle of my luckless days, where in
the night, like terrified Ascanius, I was bereft by destiny of
my mother, of her soft embraces and caresses, — rememberest
thou how many tears I shed while still a child ? Alas ! since
then, a prey of evil fate, all sorrows I have learned, all
misery of existence. The depths by Fortune furrowed
were cleft below me, and the thunder never silenced. Driven
from vill to vill, from land to land, I sought in vain a refuge
upon earth: its unrelenting finger saw I everywhere, and
everywhere its lightnings struck the bard ! Neither in the
humble ploughman's hut, nor under cover of Alfonso's palace,
nor in the quiet of the lowliest shelter, nor forest tangle, nor
mountains, was my head secure, the exile's head, by shame
and fame oppressed, and from the cradle a victim of the god-
dess of the doom.

"Friends, what wrings so terribly my breast? What
gnaws my heart, and keeps it in a flutter ? Whence have I
come ? What awful journey have I made ? What glimmers

Konstantin Nikolaevich Batyushkov 77

there behind me in the dark ? Ferrara furies

and the snake of envy! Whither, whither, murderers of
genius ? I 'm in the haven; 't is Rome. Here are my fam-
ily, my brothers! Here are their tears and sweet caresses, —
and Vergil's crown here in the Capitol!

''Yes, I have done Apollo's bidding: his zealous priest
from earliest youth, I sang, midst lightnings, under raging
skies, the fame and majesty of bygone days. My soul,
though fettered, never changed; the rapture of the sweet-
voiced Muses never died in me, and through my sufferings
my genius grew strong. It dwelt in the land of miracles, O
Sion, by thy walls, on Jordan's flowery banks; and it com-
muned with thee, rebellious Cedron, and thee, peaceful re-
treats of Lebanon! 'T is there the heroes of the ancient
days rose from the dead, in the majesty and glow of their
grim glory. It beheld thee, Godfrey, ruler, lord of kings,
majestic, calm, while arrows whizzed; and thee, youthful
Rinaldo, fervid like Achilles and a happy victor in love and
war. It saw thee flying o'er the corpses of the foeman's
host, like fire, like death, like the destroying angel,— and
Tartarus vanquished by the gleaming cross !

" O models of unheard-of valour! O holy triumph and
victory of the pure faith of our ancestors now long asleep !
Torquato extricated you from the abyss of time: he sang,— •
and you will never be forgotten; he sang: to him a wreath
of immortality has been decreed, wound by the hands of
Muses and of Glory. Too late: I stand o'er the abyss of
destiny, shall not applauded reach the Capitol, and laurels
of fame upon my feeble head will not assuage the singer's
bitter fate!"

He stopped. A sombre light glowed in his eyes, the final
ray of genius before its death ; it seemed, the dying wished
to snatch one day of triumph from the Parcse; his eyes
sought eagerly the Capitolian walls; he tried his best to
raise himself but lay, exhausted from the dreadful torment
of his agony, immovable upon his bed. Day's luminary
was gliding to the west, and merged in blood-red glow ; the
hour of death was near the sufferer's gloomy brow

78 9 The Nineteenth Century

was now agleam with its last light. Refreshed by the even-
ing coolness, he raised his right hand to the hearkening
heavens, like a righteous man, with hope and joy:

" See," he addressed his sobbing friends, " the royal lumi-
nary flaming in the west! 'T is he, 't is he who calls me

to the cloudless lands where glows the eternal light .

The angel stands before me to guide me on ; he shades me

with his azure pinions . Give me Love's token, this

mysterious cross . Pray in hope and tears all

earthly things are vanishing and glory and the crown

the sublime creations of the Arts and Muses: all

is there eternal as the Lord, the Giver of the crown of
immortal glory ! There is all the great my spirit fed upon,
and I did from my cradle breathe. O brothers, friends!
weep not o'er me: your friend has reached at last the longed-
for goal. He '11 pass away in peace and, strong in faith, will

not perceive his cruel end: there, there . O bliss!

'midst virtuous women and 'midst angels Eleanor will meet
him!"

And with the name of love the godly passed away; his
friends sobbed speechless o'er him. Daylight softly died

away the bell's voice spread the melancholy news

down to the streets: " Dead is our Torquato! " Rome cried
in tears : ' * Dead is the bard who has deserved a better fate ! ' '

The dawn perceived a sombre smoke of torches, and

in mourning shrouded was the Capitol.

Fedor Nikoldevich Glinka. (1788-1880.)

Glinka was born in the Government of Smolensk and was educated
in the First Cadet Corps, which he left in 1803 as lieutenant. He
took part in the campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon in
the Austrian possessions, serving as adjutant under Milorddovich.
He described his experience in his Letters of a Russian Officer,
which is a remarkable production for a young man of nineteen.
After his return he devoted himself to literature, both prose and
poetry. His poems attracted much attention on account of their
sincerity and the harmoniousness of their verses. In 1869 he pub-
lished a collection of Spiritual Songs.

In C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics are given The Appearance of the

Fedor Nikolaevich Glinka 79

Unknown, The Search for God, and Moscow. N. H. Dole has trans-
lated his Moscow (publication un ascertain able).

MOSCOW

Wondrous city, ancient city,

Thou enfoldest in thy walls
Villages and smiling suburbs,

Churches, palaces and halls.

Thou art girt by grassy meadows,
Gay with gardens, rich in flowers;

Seven the hills are which thou crownest
With thy temples, with thy towers.

Thou unfoldest like a parchment

Written by a giant hand,
And beside thy little river

Thou art glorious now and grand.

Many are thine ancient churches
Towering like the northern pine ;

Where can eye see streets so noble,
Mother Moscow, as are thine ?

Capture Moscow's mighty Kreml?

Who on earth would boast the power ?
Who could rob the golden bonnet

From the slender Ivan tower ?

Who could ever swing the Tsar-bell,

Or the Tsar-gun overthrow ?
Reverence at the sacred gateway

Who could ever fail to show ?

In thine awful hour of peril,
When thy haughty neck was bent,

All thy children, men of Russia,
Felt with thee the punishment.

8o , The Nineteenth Century

White- walled city, thou wast chastened

Like a martyr in the fire ;
And thy river, boiling, hastened

Onward to escape the pyre.

Once a captive and dishonoured,

In thine embers thou didst lie!
Now arisen from thine ashes

Changeless, lift thy head on high !

Flourish through the countless ages,

Moscow ! many-towered town.
Thou art central heart of Russia,

Russia's glory, Russia's crown!
— Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).

THE SEARCH FOR GOD

The heavens grow dark before mine eyes,
The earth gives out a groaning sound;
The stormy blasts in fury rise,
And all obstructions quick confound;
They drive apart hills with their foot,
Huge trees they pluck up by the root:
I call on God with loudest tone, —
God is not in the tempest known.

As I behold, the meadows fair
Are breaking into mound and vale;
The earth is shaking everywhere,
The rocks roll down the hills like hail;
Dense clouds of smoke the sight appall,
With trembling voice on God I call, —
But in the earthquake's fearful round
His holy footsteps are not found.

On novel wonders still I gaze;

The vaults of heaven with lightning blaze,

Prince Petr Andreevich Vyazemski 81

The flames burst forth on every side,
And onwards rush, — a raging tide, —
Stirring the mind with direst fear, —
But not in fire does God appear.

Fair peace succeeds: the perfect calm

My prescient spirit fills with balm;

Like the young morn with glimmering light,

So burns with haze of silver bright

The presence pure of God :

The soul, responsive to the strain,

Breathes with unearthly life again;

Sweet stillness settles on the scene,

And, though deep distance intervene,

God's voice is heard abroad.

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

Prince Petr Andreevich Vyazemski. (1792-1878.)

Prince Vydzemski was one of the very few literary men in Russia
whose career began before that of Pushkin and who were still active
at a time when Tolst6y and Dostoevski had established their reput-
ations. His father, dying, left him in charge of Karamzin, to whom
he was related by marriage. Through him, Prince Vyazemski was
early brought in contact with the literary circle, meeting there on a
friendly footing Zhuk6vski, Bdtyushkov, and Pushkin. He took
part in the campaign of 1812, and at Borodin6 two horses were shot
under him. He later occupied various posts, and was made Asso-
ciate Minister of Public Instruction and a Senator in 1855. His
literary works have lately been collected in twelve large volumes,
and yet, in spite of his great talent as a satirist, critic, and lyricist, he
has fallen into oblivion. The cause of this is that he persevered in
the pseudo-classic, sentimental attitude of the school of Karamzin,
while the Romantic spirit of Pushkin's time touched him but lightly,
and the realism of the period after the forties entrenched him only
more in his old habits and confirmed him in his hostility to every-
thing that departed from the code of Karamzin.

Sir John Bowring gives in Part II. of the Specimens of the Russian
Poets translations of his To My Three Absent Friends, To N. N.t
and Fragment ; John Pollen, in the Rhymes from the Russian, has
translated his Troika. An epigram of his is given by V. E. Marsden
in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9.

VOL. II. — 6.

82 The Nineteenth Century

THE SAMOVlR

'T is pleasant, having strayed abroad, to find a familiar
picture of native customs, homelike bread-and-salt, a hos-
pitable roof, a retreat, a sacred retreat of your country's
Lares for the soul that is crusted by the ice in the chill sea
of the world, where to a native question there is no native
answer ; where life is but an empty exchange of ceremonial
words; where you are only a stranger and only Monsieur N.
'T is pleasant to warm yourself in a quiet haven and with
confidence to look into friends' faces, eagerly to listen to the
discourse in which there is something familiar to the soul
and a message from bygone days.

A wanderer's days are like unto displaced pages: a teas-
ing, malicious spirit disrupts them, — there is no connection:
each day you live anew, yet life is only good through tradi-
tions of love, oneness of beliefs and feelings, concord of im-
pressions, and a gentle antiqueness of customary relations.
Our mind is cosmopolitan, but our heart home-bound: the
mind pleases itself in ever treading new paths, and has all
its joys in the future; but the heart grows young with old
dreams, the heart lives on old habits and blooms more gladly
in the shadow of the past. Oh, be blessed, roof of light and
refuge, where, like a relative, the guest of the moment has
been received, where carelessly he could unfold his heart,
and for a time deceive his orphanhood ! Where consciously
and sympathetically he partook of the dear family's harmony
and happiness, and saw the young joys of the parents' souls
blooming in a cloudless calm .

But we are drawn even by another mysterious power to
that familiar retreat where, with usual kindness, the loving
family waits for us at the table. I love that hour, — almost
the best of the day, — a poetic hour 'midst the prose of rude
days, a sincere hour of life, a joyous interval 'twixt the labour
of the day and the deep sleep of the night. All accounts are
cast, — in the balance we live: there are no cares of life, nay,
have not been ; to-day has vanished from your shoulders, to-
morrow is not yet. Hour of friendly discourse at the tea

Prince Petr Andreevich Vyazemski 83

table! Honour and praise to the young hostess! Right
Orthodox ly, not in German fashion, not thin like water or
childish drink, but redolent with Russia, juicy and thick,
the fragrant tea flows in an amber stream.

Very well! But I find one thing lacking: no, the stamp
of Russian life is not complete ! Where is the native samo-
var, our family's hearth, our family altar, ark of domestic
joys ? In it boil, from it flow, the traditions of all our days;
in it live the recollections of Russian antiquity ; it alone has
survived from the torso of former years, — the inextinguish-
able grandfather has passed to the grandchildren. It is the
Russian rococo, formless, awkward, but inwardly good,
though unsightly from without; it preserves better the heat,
and while it croons, the discourse boils like its steaming
liquid.

How many secret chapters of daily romances, life-stirring,
heartfelt romances that are not in books, — let one write as
sweetly as one may, — how many pure dreams of maidens'
souls and gentle quarrels of love, and gentle peace-making,
and quiet joys, and softly riotous joys have stealthily taken
fire in its flame and have invisibly been carried in its cloud
of steam ! Wherever there are domestic Penates, from gilded
palaces to humble huts, wherever there is the brass samovdr,
an inheritance of the orphan, the widow's last wealth, and
luxury of poverty, — everywhere in holy and Orthodox Russia
it is the chief participator at family reunions. One cannot
be born into the world, nor enter into matrimony, nor will
friends say " welcome" or " good-bye," but that, the end
and beginning of all everyday affairs, the boiling samovar,
the domestic leader of the choir, raises its voice and calls
the family together.

The poet has said, and his verse we understand : * ' Our
country's smoke is sweet and pleasant to us!" Was not
our great poet — there can be no doubt about it — then in-
spired by the samovdr? Derzhdvin's shades, following me,
turn to you with the earnest request, to his honour and the
honour of the Orthodox country, to throw away the teapot
and introduce the samovar.

84 'The Nineteenth Century

TO MY THREE ABSENT FRIENDS

My brothers! whither scattered now ?
What fate, what cruel fate could sever
Hands, souls, fast-bound, divided never ?
But ye are fled, and fled for ever,

And I am left alone with woe !

The sigh I heave in silence here,
The careless zephyr bears away ;
'T is lost in twilight's darkening ray,
'T is veiled in night, — it fades in day, —

It ne'er will reach your listening ear.

Perchance e'en now, while round me roll
Dark storms and misty clouds, e'en now,
Pain's icy sweat upon his brow,
One calls upon his friend, and oh !

Death's wintry curtain wraps his soul.

Then sleep in peace, thou spirit blest !
My spirit seems to cling to thee;
From sorrow to felicity
Wafted, thy bark has passed the sea

Of storms, in joy's calm port to rest.

How long shall absence' misery last ?
When, when shall dawn the hour of meeting ?
Shall ne'er again the blessed greeting
Of social bliss return ? — How fleeting

Its rapture, — 't is for ever past!

Cold, cold, — I feel my heart; delight

Can kindle ne'er its fire again;

My tears flow forth, they flow in vain;

My smiles, — no light those smiles retain;
For what awaked it sinks in night.

Prince Petr Andreevich Vyazemski 85

Time was, how blessed to recall
That time, when our hands garlanded
The fairest wreaths of roses red,
And in youth's spring the chorus led

To heaven, the source, the end of all.

Time was, but like a dream it fled!

The hymn, — 't is now a funeral dirge;

The garland, — 't is affliction's scourge;

The dance, — its memories now emerge
L,ike ghosts that wander midst the dead.

And now the plaint ascends ! Appear,
Appear, delightful hours, anew !
Spirit of youth, so fond, so true,
Awake! Suns, once so bright, so few,

Shine, — let illusion's mockery cheer!

But see! the darkness creeps away, —
The clouds disperse, the storm is gone, —
Thy smile returns not, blessed one !
The mountains see the morning dawn,
To me, alas ! there dawns no day.

— From Sir John Bowring's Specimens of the
Russian Poets, Part II.

DEATH REAPS THE HARVEST OF IvIFE

Death reaps the harvest of life, and every day and every
hour asks for a new prey of life, and sternly tears us asunder.

How many fair names he has already snatched away from
the living, and how many voiceless lyres hang on young
cypresses !

How many companions are no more, how many younger
ones have passed, whose morning dawned when the sultry
midday burnt us !

But we have remained, have survived that fateful carnage ;
but we are impoverished after the death of our near ones,
and no longer strive for life as for a conflict.

86 The Nineteenth Century

Sadly finishing our days, we are waiting for the belated
relief,— slowly dying from day to day, until we shall be no
more.

Sons of another generation, we are a last year's flower in
the new : the impressions of the living are foreign to us, and
they have no sympathy for ours.

They care not for that which we love, and their passions
do not agitate us! They were not there where we have
been, and not for us is where they shall be !

Our world is an empty fane to them, our past is but a
myth, and that which for us are hallowed ashes, to them is
but mute dust.

Yes! We are like ruins, and we stand on the crossroad
of the living, like mortuary monuments amidst the habita-
tions of men !

Kondr&ti F6dorovich Ryly£ev. (1796-1826.)

Rylye"ev was at the early age of six inscribed by his mother in the
Cadet Corps, in order to remove him from the influence of his brutal
father. In 1814 he graduated as lieutenant, and took part in the ex-
pedition that entered Paris. Upon his return, he was stationed in the
Governments of Minsk and Vor6nezh ; he later settled in St. Peters-
burg, where he distinguished himself for his official integrity as
member of the Criminal Court and as Manager of the Russo- American
Company. He began to write verses as a boy, and his ardent repub-
licanism, coupled with a not less fervent patriotism, led him to an
idealisation of ancient Russian heroes. He did this in the prevailing
Romantic spirit, being urged on in his endeavours by his mentor and
friend, Pushkin. Of his historical ballads the best are Ivan Susanin
and Voynardvski ; they all created an outburst of patriotic enthusiasm
upon their appearance. Of his other poems the most perfect are The
Citizen and Civil Valour. Rylye"ev took an active part in the plot
of the Decembrists, was at once arrested, and later publicly executed.
His poems were prohibited in Russia until a comparatively recent
time.

An extract from Voynardvski was translated in the Foreign
Quarterly Review, vol. ix., 1832 ; a large number of his poems, con-
taining the whole of Voynardvski, are given in The Poems of K. F.
Relaieff, translated from the Russian by T. Hart-Davies, London
(new and enlarged edition, 1887) ; C. T. Wilson has translated in

Kondrati Fedorovich Rylyeev 87

Russian Lyrics his Ivan Sus&nin, Svyatopblk, and Prayer Before
Death. In Free Russia, vol. xii., No. 2, The Citizen is translated by
Elizabeth Gibson.

FROM "VOYNAROVSKI"

But whose that wandering form that 's seen
Athwart the morning fog to creep
From out yon hut, and on the steep
Beneath which Lena's waters sweep
Pace with slow step and 'wildered mien ?
His arquebus slung at his back,
His short caftan, and cap of black,
Seem to denote him a Cossack
From Dnieper's shores. Stern is his face,
And full of grief, for cankering thought
Hath furrowed deep that brow, and wrought
The stamp of age on manhood's grace.
See ! to the west his hands extending,
Wild lustre breaking from his eyes,
Homeward his thoughts and wishes sending,
He thus exclaims with tearless sigh :

11 Ye distant fields, that saw my birth,

My death you may not view !
Tombs of my sires ! The exile's bones

Will never rest in you!
In vain the flame of life yet burns, —

It never more may shine;
In vain my soul the dastard spurns, —

The dastard's lot is mine.J)

Who is that exile ? None may tell :
Months, years have passed since first he came
To this his far abode of shame,
Here shunned, and shunning all, to dwell.
Ne'er hath a smile been seen to play
Across that face blanched by despair;

88 'The Nineteenth Century

And woe, not age, hath tinged with grey
His unkempt beard and matted hair.
Yet, not a felon deed hath sent
That stranger hither; nor hath brent
The glowing iron his scarred face,
And charactered a slave's disgrace;
Though ne'er did branded felon show
Such withered look, so wild a brow.
Calmness is there, but 't is the calm
Of Baykal, ere the tempest rise
To lash its waters to the skies,
Spreading around dismay, alarm;
And, as athwart the midnight gloom
Flickers the lamp beside the tomb,
So gleam with ghastly glare his eyes.
Wandering alone o'er crag, through dell,
He roams each day, and none may dare
To ask his name, his grief, his care:
His frown forbids, that frown 's a spell.

1 ' l,ist, stranger, and with wonder learn
How Fate, unpitying, wayward, stern,
Delights us mortals to oppress.
Beneath this garb uncouth, this dress
So coarse, a slave it scarce befits,
Thus abject here beside thee sits
Mazeppa's kinsman, friend, and heir."

— From Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.

IVAN SUSANIN

" Where lead'st thou our footsteps? Here naught can be

seen,"

Thus shouted the foe to the brave Susanin,
' ' We sink in the snow-heaps, we stick on the road,
We ne'er shall arrive at thy sheltering abode;
'T is on purpose thou stray 'st from the path, but in vain,
From tricks like this Michael no safety will gain.

Kondrati Fedorovich Rylyeev 89

' ' Though snow-storm may rage, though we wander afar,
Yet death at the Poles' hands shall come on thy Tsar;
So lead on, or tremble! and shorten our pain, —
All night with the tempest contending amain,
Through snow-storms and cold thou hast made us to go, —
But what dark spot is that in the valley below ? ' '

" 'T is the hamlet," the peasant replied, " see, there stand
The corn-yards, the bridge, and the pales round the land !
With me, on to the door, for the cottage hath been
L,ong time ready warmed to receive guests within,
So onward, and fear not ! ' ' " Well, well I must say
Thou hast led us, my friend, a most cursed long way.

"A night more infernal I never have seen,

With snow stuck together my eyelids have been ;

My coat, pah! you wring it, there 's not a thread dry."

Thus grumbled the Pole, and went in with the cry

Of, "Wine, wine! we are cold, we are wet through and

through,
Or we '11 take what our broadswords can wring out of you."

And now on the board the rough napkin was spread
With beer and with wine-jugs, and each had his bread
Before him, and soup made of cabbage was there
And Russian wheat-gruel, a right welcome fare.
Without the cold wind at the casemates was spurning,
Within the dim spluttering torches were burning.

Now midnight had passed, in tranquillity deep

On the benches the Poles lay unheeding asleep,

In the house filled with smoke no one stirring was seen,

Save as sentinel standing the grey Susanin,

In the corner he stood near the ikon, and there

For the young Tsar's protection he murmured a prayer.

The silence the tramp of a horse's hoofs stirred.
Then stole Susanin to the doorway, and heard,

90 The Nineteenth Century

"Is it thou, father dear ? to find thee I am here.
Where goest thou ? Rough is the journey and drear,
'T is past midnight, no lull in the tempest hath come,
Sure thou bringest distress to the hearts of thy home."

"It was God's will thy steps to this village to guide,
And now haste to the young Tsar, ' ' the father replied,
"And tell him, tell Michael, to flee and not wait,
For the murderous Poles in their pride and their hate
In secret to murder young Michael intend,
And so doth a fresh woe o'er Moscow impend.

" Tell him that I, loving my faith and my land,

Will rescue the Tsar from the enemy's hand;

Tell him that his safety lies only in flight,

That e'en now the assassins are with me this night."

"O my father, what say'st thou ? — a moment refrain,"

Said the youth, ' ' if thou die, what to me will remain ?

" Who then my young sister, my mother will guard ? "

* ' The holy Creator will take them in ward, ' '

Said brave Susanin, "and they never will fall,

For assistance and shelter He giveth to all

Who are orphans; so hasten, 't is time now to go,

'T is for Russia, remember, I lay my life low."

With a sob the youth mounted, and swiftly did go,

Like a whistling arrow just loosed from the bow.

Through the clouds the moon shone, the wild snow-storm

was o'er,

All hushed were the winds and the tempest's loud roar,
In the east the dim dawn 'gan to glimmer afar,
And the Poles woke from slumber, those foes of the Tsar.

" Susanin," they cried, " cease thy prayers to thy God,
It is time for the start, we should be on the road! "
So leaving the village in shouting array,
Through the forest they followed a winding pathway.

Susanin led them on ; and now up rose the light,

And the sun through the branches began to gleam bright.

Kondrati Fedorovich Rylyeev 91

Soon his rays were obscured, then again brightly shone,
Then with dim light he glimmered, and vanished anon.
Scarce a rustle was heard from the beech or the oak,
Scarce a sound 'neath the feet from the frost-bound snow

broke,

Scarce a crow rose in flight with a flutter and cry,
And the woodpecker pecked at the willow-tree dry.

In silence the Poles marched on singly in file,

Still farther their grey-haired guide led them the while;

Now high in the heavens the mid-day sun stood,

But darker and drearer grew the thick wood,

Till sudden before them the pathway was lost,

And a hedge of fir-branches thick plaited and crossed

With pine-boughs right down to the ground interlaced,

On the road like some rough wall before them was placed ;

In vain did the scouts bend a listening ear,

All was desert and dead, not a sound could they hear.

1 ' Whither now hast thou led us ? " the wearied Poles cried.

11 To the place that was needed," the peasant replied;

' ' So slay me, a martyr, for here is my tomb,

But know that I save the young Tsar from his doom;

Ye thought ye had found a base traitor in me,

But no Russ is a traitor, nor ever shall be!

Here each loves his country from youth's early day,

And his fatherland vilely can never betray."

" Wretch! " yelled the fierce Poles with a wild fury torn,
' ' Thou shalt die 'neath our sabres. " ' ' Your anger I scorn,
For the true Russian heart with content and with trust
Ever joyfully dies in the cause which is just,
Fear of death or of doom from my spirit is far, \

All untrembling I die for my country and Tsar."

92 The Nineteenth Century

1 ' Die then ! " to the hero the angry foe screamed,
O'er his grey head the broadswords keen- whistling gleamed,
" Perish, traitorous villain, thy life's end is near! "
Susanin wounded fell without shrinking or fear,
By his purer blood's red stream the pure snow was laved —
'T was that life-blood which Michael for Russia had saved.
—From T. Hart-Davies's The Poems of K. F. Relaieff.

Aleks£ndr Sergy6evich Griboyedov. (1795-1829.)

The famous author of the drama Intelligence Comes to Grief was
the son of wealthy and cultivated parents, who gave him a brilliant
education. At the age of fifteen he spoke several languages fluently,
and entered the university, from which he graduated two years later
with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He immediately joined the
army, but did not take part in the foreign campaigns as his regiment
was kept back for home duty. During his leisure hours he translated
and remodelled several French dramas, without displaying any
especial talent for dramatic work. In 1818 he was appointed secre-
tary of the Russian legation in Persia, and in recognition of his im-
portant services was highly decorated by both the Russian and the
Persian governments. During his wearisome sojourn in Asia he laid
the foundation for his drama Intelligence Comes to Grief, and he
finished it in Moscow in 1823. He went with it to St. Petersburg to
stage it, but the censor would not permit even its publication. In the
meanwhile the drama became known throughout Russia in hundreds
of manuscript copies, and it created a sensation unlike any previous
work of literature. In portraying both the servility and corruption
of the older temporising generation, and the carping criticism and
would-be liberalism of the younger set, who in their endeavour to
imitate the West sinned against the national character, Griboy6dov
incurred the animosities of all the camps ; but by unanimous consent
Intelligence Comes to Grief "is the greatest national drama of Russia.
Since its first appearance on the stage in 1831, and its first publication
in 1833, it has had some fifty editions, and is still on the repertoire of
Russian theatres. In 1828 Griboyedov was sent again to Persia, this
time in the capacity of minister, but he was killed soon after his ar-
rival in Teheran by an infuriated mob.

Intelligence Comes to Grief was translated into English under its
Russian title, Gore ot Ouma, from the Russian of Griboiedoff, by N.
Benardaky, London, Edinburgh, 1857. In The Anglo-Russian Liter-
ary Society, No. 15, is translated his David, by F. P. Marchant.

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Griboyedov 93

FROM "INTELLIGENCE COMES TO GRIEF"

ACT II, SCENE I. FAMUSOV AND SERVANT

Fdmusov. Petrushka, your caftan is eternally patched up
or torn at the elbow! Fetch down the almanac. Look
there; don't read like a sexton, but with feeling, with under-
standing, with rests. Hold on ! Write down on the memo-
randum, against next week: " I 'm invited to Praskovya
F6dorovna on Tuesday for trout." How wonderful this
world is made! Your brain is in a whirl when you philoso-
phise about it ! Now you take care of yourself, and now it
is a dinner; you eat three hours, and it will not be digested
in three days. Oh, make a note for the same day — no, no !
" For Thursday I am called to a funeral." O human race!
It has slipped my mind that we all shall have to get into
that box where one can neither stand up nor sit. Here is an
example of a praiseworthy life: the defunct was an honour-
able chamberlain, he held a key, and has managed to obtain
a key for his son ; he was rich, and married to a rich woman ;
he married off his children and grandchildren ; he has passed
away, and all mention him with regret : ' ' Maksim Petr6vich,
peace to his ashes!" Write down, on Thursday, while
you are about it, or may be, on Friday, or Saturday: " I am
to be godfather at the doctor's widow." The child is not
yet born, but, if my calculation is right, will be.

SCENE 2. FAMUSOV, SERVANT, AND CHATSKI

Fdmusov. Ah, Aleksandr Andreich, come nearer, take a
seat!

Chdtski. You are busy ?

Fdmusov (to the servant). Go! (Servant exit.) Yes, I have
been entering various memoranda on business matters, not
to forget them by any chance.

Chdtski. You look disconcerted. Tell me, why ? Is my
arrival untimely? Has, perchance, some sorrow come to
Sophia Pdvlovna ? There is disquiet in your face and move-
ments.

94 The Nineteenth Century

Fdmusov. What a riddle you have propounded, my friend !
Not joyful! You would not expect me, at my age, to dance

a jig.

Chdtski. Nobody asks you to. I just asked two words
about Sophia Pavlovna, fearing that she might be ill.

Fdmusov. Pshaw, the Lord spare us! Five thousand
times he repeats one and the same thing : now it is, there is
no one fairer in the world than Sophia Pavlovna, now,
Sophia Pavlovna is ill. Tell me, have you taken a liking
to her? You have raced through the whole world, — don't
you want to get married ?

Chdtski. What is that to you ?

Fdmusov. It would not be bad to ask of me : I am, so to
say, a near relative of hers; at least, they have not in vain
been calling me her father.

Chdtski. Suppose I should sue for her hand, what would
you say ?

Fdmusov. I should say : First, do not make a fool of your-
self, do not, my friend, neglect your estate; but above all,
take a government position.

Chdtski. I should gladly serve, but I hate to be subservient.

Fdmusov. That Js it! You are all a haughty lot! Ask
how your fathers have done ! Learn from your elders. Let
us take, for example, my deceased uncle, Maksim Petr6vich :
he used to dine not upon silver, but upon gold; a hundred
servants were at his beck; he was all covered with decora-
tions; he travelled all the time in a procession, was all the
time at Court, and at what Court! It was not then as now:
he served under Empress Catherine! In those days there
was some weight in dignity: bow all you please to them,
they would not nod their heads. A dignitary was not an
ordinary mortal : he drank and ate quite differently. And
my uncle, — what is your prince, your count ? He had such
a serious look, such haughty mien, — but when it was neces-
sary to be subservient, he knew how to limber up his joints.
Once he by chance made a misstep during audience at
Court: he fell, and almost hurt his occiput. The old man
groaned,— his hoarse voice provoked her Majesty's smile,

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Griboy£dov 95

she deigned to laugh. What did he do ? He rose, arranged
his clothes, wanted to make a bow, and fell down again, but
this time on purpose. The laughter was louder than before,
—he repeated his feat. Well, how is that according to your
ideas? According to ours, he was shrewd: he fell down in
pain, he rose quite well. Who was oftenest invited to whist ?
Who heard a kind word at Court? Maksim Petrovich!
Who was honoured above all others at Court ? Maksim Pe-
tr6vich! That 's no trifle! Who conferred ranks, and gave
pensions ? Maksim Petr6vich ! Ah, you of to-day are what ?

Chdtski. Truly, the world has grown more stupid— you
may say so with a sigh! When we compare the present age
with the one that 's past, though the tradition is living, it is
hard to believe : he was most famous whose neck was often-
est bent, and the brow took by assault in peace, not war;
they mercilessly knocked their brows against the floor. He
who needed it, took delight in grovelling in the dust; those
who stood higher wove flattery like lace, — it was a sincere
age of submission and terror ! Under the mask of zeal for
the Tsar — (I am not talking of your uncle: we will not
disturb his ashes). But now, who would, even in the most
ardent servility, undertake to amuse the people, and boldly
to sacrifice his occiput ? Though then, many an equal of
his, or some old man who was falling to pieces in his ancient
hide, seeing his capers, probably remarked: "Oh, if I could
do the same! " There are even now some servile souls, but
nowadays ridicule terrifies them and shame holds them in
check. Kings, with good reason, are slow to favour them.

Fdmusov. My God, he is a carbonaro !

Chdtski. No, this is a different world !

Fdmusov. Dangerous man !

Chdtski. Everybody breathes more freely, and nobody
hastens to inscribe himself in the army of fools.

Fdmusov. How he talks! And he talks as he writes.

Chdtski. To yawn at the ceiling in the house of your
patrons, to make your appearance and sit in silence, to
courtesy, dine, fetch a chair, lift up a handkerchief —

Fdmusov. He wants to preach liberty !

96 The Nineteenth Century

Chdtski. Who travels, who lives in the village—

Fdmusov. He does not acknowledge the authorities!

Chdtski. Who serves his office and not men —

Fdmusov. I should most severely forbid such gentlemen to
get within a gunshot of the capitals!

Chdtski. I will not give you any rest!

Fdmusov. My patience is all exhausted, I have had
enough !

Chdtski. I have unmercifully scolded your age; I leave it
to you to reject part of it in favour of our times: I shall not
contradict.
. Fdmusov. I do not wish to know you ! I despise debauch !

Chdtski. I have had my say.

Fdmusov. Very well, I close my ears !

Chdtski. What for ? I shall not insult them.

Fdmusov (rapidly). Such are the people that race the world
and waste their time. When they return, what ofder can
you expect of them ?

Chdtski. I am done.

Fdmusov. Please, spare me !

Chdtski. It is not my desire to continue the dispute.

Fdmusov. At least leave my soul to repentance.

SCENE 3. THE SAME AND SERVANT

Servant. Colonel Skalozub !

Fdmusov (not seeing or hearing him}. You '11 be court-
martialled yet! They '11 give you to drink.

Chdtski. You have a guest.

Fdmusov. I do not hear! You '11 be court-martialled !

Chdtski. Your servant is reporting to you.

Fdmusov. I do not hear! You'll be court-martialled,
court-martialled, I say !

Chdtski. Just turn around, you are addressed.

Fdmusov (turning around}. Oh, rebellion! I am expect-
ing nothing but Sodom !

Servant. Colonel Skaloztib! Shall he be received ?

Fdmusov (rising). Asses! Shall I repeat it a hundred

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Griboyedov 97

times ? Receive him, call him, ask him in, tell him I am at
home, that I am glad. Begone, be in a hurry! {Exit Ser-
vant.) Please, sir, be careful in his presence; he is a dis-
tinguished gentleman, of solid habits, and he has no end of
decorations; his rank is enviable, considering his age; 't is
but a question of a short time when he will be general !

SCENE 5. CHJLTSKI, FlMUSOV, SKAI<OZUB

Fdmusov. Sergyey Sergyeich, come here, near us! 'T is
warmer here, come here! I '11 open the register at once.

Skalozub (in a heavy bass). Why should you trouble your-
self? As an honourable officer I can't permit that.

Fdmusov. Why should I not take a step for a friend ?
Dear Sergyey Sergy&ch, put down your hat, take off your
sword. Here is a sofa : make yourself comfortable.

Skalozub. I do not care where, so I am seated.

{All three sit down, Chdtski at some distance.)

Fdmusov. O friend, not to forget: let us figure out our
relationship — there is no inheritance to be divided here.
Do you know — I used to know, thanks to what your cousin
told me — how Nastasya Nikoldevna is related to you ?

Skalozub. Beg your pardon, I do not know: we did not
serve together.

Fdmusov. Sergyey Sergyeich, do you say that? I am
ready to get down on my knees before a relative of mine,
wherever I may find him, though he be at the bottom of the
sea. I seldom have subordinates who are not my relatives:
they are nearly all my sister's children, or some near rela-
tive's; Molchalin only is not of my family, and for the reason
that he knows about affairs. How can one help thinking of
his family, when there is a chance for promotion or for
decoration ? Yet, your cousin told me that through you he
has had many advantages in his service.

Skalozub. Cousin and I distinguished ourselves in 1813 in
the thirtieth of the Chasseurs, and later in the forty-fifth.

Fdmusov. How fortunate is he who has such a son ! He
has, I believe, a decoration in the buttonhole ?

VOL. II. — 7.

98 The Nineteenth Century

Skalozub. For August third. We stuck to a trench. He
received his in the buttonhole, I— around my neck.

Fdmusov. A lovely man! A fine fellow to look at! A
splendid man is your cousin !

Skalozub. He 's chock-full of new-fangled rules. He was
to get a higher rank, when he left the service, and began to
read books in his village.

Fdmusov. Strange youth ! To read, and then — look out !
You have acted as is proper: you have long been colonel,
though you serve but shortly.

Skalozub. I am sufficiently fortunate in my colleagues.
Vacancies have been open just at the right time: some older
ones have been retired, and others have been killed off.

Fdmusov. Yes, if God wants to show one His favour, He
advances him !

Skalozub. Some are luckier than I. Not to go farther,
I '11 mention our brigadier-general in the fifteenth division.

Fdmusov. But, I pray, you are lacking nothing.

Skalozub. I can't complain, — I have not been overlooked;
yet, I have been two years with the same regiment.

Fdmusov. Oh, you are after the rank of general! Still, in
many other things you have left others far behind.

Skalozub. No, there are older ones than I in the army: I
have been serving since eighty-nine. Yes, there are many
channels through which one may get promotion; I judge of
them like a real philosopher: all I care for is the rank of
general.

Fdmusov. You judge excellently. God grant you health
and the rank of general — and, why delay it longer? — it
would be time to begin talking of a Mrs. Skalozub.

Skalozub. Get married ? I am not disinclined.

Fdmusov. Well! One has a sister, another a niece, a
daughter. In Moscow there is no lack of prospective brides:
they breed each year! My friend, confess, it would be hard
to find another capital like Moscow.

Skalozub. Distances of enormous proportion !

Fdmusov. There are good taste, my friend, and excellent
manners, and for everything there are laws. There, for

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Griboyedov 99

example, it is an old custom with us that the son is honoured
according to his father: let him be a worthless chap, but let
him have two thousand peasants to his name, and he will
be an eligible bridegroom ; another may be much more agile,
full of all kinds of pride, let him pass for a clever fellow, —
yet he will not be a member of our families, nor need you
wonder at this, for it is only here that we still respect noble
birth. Nor is this all ! Take our hospitable bread and salt :
anyone who may wish to call on us is welcome ! The door
is open for invited and uninvited guests, especially if they
be foreigners. It makes no difference to us whether they
be honourable or dishonest men: dinner is prepared for
all alike. On all the Muscovites, if you please, there is
a special stamp. Just look at our youths, our sons, and
grandchildren: we lecture them, but look close at them,
and you will find that at fifteen years they are ready to teach
their teachers ! And our old men ? When a notion strikes
them, and they discuss affairs, — each word they say is a sen-
tence passed. They are important men, and care not a fig for
anyone. Should someone hear their discussions about the
Government, there would be trouble ! Not that they intro-
duce innovations — never ! The Lord preserve us, no ! They
simply find fault with this and that, and oftenest with no-
thing at all : they quarrel, make a noise, and go each one to
his home. They are true ex-chancellors as regards their
brains ! I will tell you this much : evidently time has not
been propitious, but no affair will be decided without them.
And the ladies? Let anyone try and get the better of
them! They are judges in all things and everywhere, —
there are no judges over them. When they rise in common
riot at the cards, — then God grant us patience! Remember,
I have myself been married! Order them to command an
army ! Send them to take their seats in the Senate ! Irina
Vlasevna! Luk6rya Aleksy6evna! Tatyana Yurevna! Pul-
khe'riya Andr£evna ! And he who has seen their daughters
will only hang his head! His Majesty the Prussian King
was here: he admired beyond measure the Moscow maidens,
— their mannerliness, not their faces ! And forsooth ! Can

ioo The Nineteenth Century

one be brought up better ! They know how to primp them-
selves in taffeta, velvet, and dimity; they never say a word
simply, but always with a grimace. They sing French
romances, and strike the upper notes. They cling to the
military,— because they are patriots. I must say emphat-
ically: you will scarcely find another such a capital as Mos-
cow!

Skalozub. In my opinion, the conflagration has done much
for its embellishment.

Fdmusov. You have no cause for complaint: since then
our roads, our sidewalks, houses, and all creak in a new
fashion.

Chdtski. The houses are new, but the prejudices old.
Rejoice: neither years, nor fashion, nor conflagrations will
annihilate them.

Fdmusov (to Chdtski). Sir, tie a knot for memory's sake!
I asked you to keep quiet, — 't is but a small service. (To
Skalozub.) Permit me, sir, to acquaint you with Chdtski, a
friend of mine, the son of the late Andr£y Ilich ! He does
not serve, that is, he sees no advantage in it; he would make
a good official, if he only wished so. 'T is a pity, a great
pity: he is a young man with a head, and he writes and
translates beautifully. One can't help regretting

Chdtski. Can you not regret someone else ? Even your
praises anger me !

Fdmusov. Not I alone, — everybody judges you thus.

Chdtski. Who are the judges? They being old, their
hostility against a free life cannot be assuaged: they draw
their judgments from forgotten gazettes of the days of
Ochdkov and the conquest of the Crimea. Ever ready to
chide, they eternally sing one and the same song, and do not
notice that the older they grow, the worse they become.
Where, show us, are the fathers of the fatherland whom we
are to assume as our models? Perchance they are those
who by robbery have grown rich, who find protection against
the courts in their friends and families, and who erect mag-
nificent palaces, where they indulge in banquets and lavish-
ness, and where the foreign clients will not efface the

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Griboyedov 101

meanest features of their former lives ? Pray, whose mouth
has in Moscow not been closed by dinners, suppers, and
dances? Is it, perhaps, he to whom you took me still in
my swaddling clothes, for some incomprehensible purpose,
to make obeisances, — that Nestor of noble scoundrels, who
was surrounded by a crowd of servants? They bestirred
themselves for him, and in houses of wine and brawls
more than once had saved his honour and his life, — and he
suddenly exchanged three hounds for them. Or that other
man who, to please his fancy, brought together in many
waggons to an enforced ballet the children who had been
torn away from their parents? Himself merged in con-
templation of Zephyrs and Cupids, he caused all Moscow to
admire their beauty; but he did not with all that appease
his creditors: the Cupids and Zephyrs were all sold one by
one.

These are the men who have lived to have grey hair ! It
is these that you wish us to respect in the wilderness ! These
are our austere arbiters and judges ! Let now one among us
young men be found who is an enemy of servility, who seeks
neither a place, nor a promotion, who, thirsting for know-
ledge, bends his mind to the sciences, or into whose soul
God Himself has implanted a fire for the high and beautiful
creative arts, — they at once cry: murder! fire! and you at
once pass for a dangerous dreamer. The uniform, nothing
but the uniform ! In their former existence their beautiful
gold-laced uniforms had cloaked their pusillanimity and pov-
erty of intelligence,— so they wish us Godspeed upon their
own path. And their wives and daughters have the same
passion for the uniforms. Is it long since I, sharing that
weakness for it, have renounced it? Now I shall never
again be prone to such childishness. But who would then
not have been carried away together with all ? When some-
one of the Guards or from the Court came here for a time, the
women cried " Hurrah! " and threw their bonnets in the air.

Fdmusov (aside). He will get me into trouble yet ! (Aloud. )
Sergye"y Sergyeich, I shall wait for you in the study. (Exit.)

102 'The Nineteenth Century

Aleksdndr Aleksdndrovich Bestuzhev (pseud. Mar-
linski). (1797-1837.)

Bestuzhev was one of three brothers who took part in the Decem-
brist uprising. He had received a brilliant education at home, which,
thanks to the industry of his highly cultivated father, was a museum
in miniature. He turned his attention to literature in 1819, through
his friend Rylye*ev joined the December conspiracy, and was banished
for only a few years to Siberia, because he had voluntarily surrendered
himself. He was possessed of an unusually ardent nature, which
led him to engage in most extravagant love affairs, with always a
duel in prospect, and his many novels, with their transcendental
Romanticism and perfervid diction, are only the expression of his
inner experiences. He died in the Caucasus, in an engagement with
the mountaineers, but his body was not recovered. He was, in his
day, the most popular novelist, whom even Pushkin greatly admired,
and several of his works have been translated into many languages,
among them also into Georgian. His Ammaldt Bek was translated
into English by Thomas B. Shaw, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Maga-
zine, vol. liii., 1843 ; also The Tartar Chief; or, A Russian Colonel's
Head for Dowry, from the Russian of Marlinsky, by G. C. Hebbe,
LUX, New York, 1846.

FROM "AMMALAT BEK"

For some time past, the mountaineers had fallen in con-
siderable numbers only on Christian villages, for in the
stanitsas * the resistance had cost them very dear. For the
plundering of houses they approached boldly yet cunningly
the Russian frontier, and on such occasions they frequently
escaped a battle. The bravest Uzdens desire to meet with
these affairs that they may acquire fame, which they value
even more than plunder.

In the autumn of the year 1810, the Kabardinians and
Chechenians, encouraged by the absence of the commander-
in-chief, assembled to the number of fifteen hundred men to
make an attack upon one of the villages beyond the Terek,
to seize it, carry off prisoners, and take the droves of horses.
The leader of the Kabardinians was the Prince Dzhembulat.
Ammaldt Bek, who had arrived with a letter from Sultan
Akhm6t Khan, was received with delight. They did not,
indeed, assign him the command of any division; but this
' Cossack villages.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev 103

arose from the circumstance that with them there is no order
of battle or gradation of command ; an active horse and in-
dividual courage secures the most distinguished place in
action. At first they deliberate how best to begin the at-
tack,— how to repel the enemy; but afterwards they pay no
attention to plan or order, and chance decides the affair.

Having sent messengers to summon the neighbouring
Uzdens, Dzhembuldt fixed on a place of general assembling ;
and immediately, on a signal agreed on, from every height
spread the cry: " Gardy, gardy! " (alarm), and in one hour
the Chechenians and Kabardinians were assembling from all
sides. To avoid treason, no one but the leader knew where
the night-camp was to be, from which they were to cross the
river. They were divided into small bands, and were to go
b}r almost invisible paths to the peaceful village, where they
were to conceal themselves till night. By twilight, all the
divisions were already mustered.

As they arrived, they were received by their countrymen
with frank embraces; but Dzhembuldt, not trusting to this,
guarded the village with sentinels, and proclaimed to the
inhabitants that whoever attempted to desert to the Russians
should be cut to pieces. The greater part of the Uzde*ns took
up their quarters in the sdklas of their kunaks or relations;
but Dzhembuldt and Ammaldt, with the best of the cavaliers,
slept in the open air around a fire, when they had refreshed
their jaded horses. Dzhembulat, wrapped in his burka,
was considering, with folded arms, the plan of the expedi-
tion ; but the thoughts of Ammaldt were far from the battle-
field: they were flying, eagle- winged, to the mountains of
Avdr, and bitterly, bitterly, did he feel his separation. The
sound of an instrument, the mountain balalayka, accom-
panying a slow air, recalled him from his reverie; and a
Kabardinian sang an ancient song.

" On Kazbek the clouds are meeting,
Like the mountain eagle-flock;
Up to them, along the rock,
Dash the wild Uzddns retreating;

104 'The Nineteenth Century

Onward faster, faster fleeting,
Routed by the Russian brood,
Foameth all their track with blood.

' ' Fast behind the regiments yelling,

Lance and bayonet raging hot,

And the seed of death their shot.
On the mail the sabre knelling,
Gallop, steed ! for far thy dwelling, —

See! they fall,— but distant still

Is the forest of the hill!

" Russian shot our hearts is rending,

Falls the Moollah on his knee,

To the Lord of Light bows he,
To the Prophet he is bending;
Like a shaft his prayer ascending,

Upward flies to Allah's throne —

II- Allah ! Oh, save thine own !

" Ah, despair!— What crash like thunder!

I,o ! a sign from heaven above !

Lo ! the forest seems to move,
Crashes, murmurs, bursts asunder !
Lower, nearer, wonder! wonder!

Safe once more the Moslem bold

In their forest mountain-hold! "

"So it was in old times," said Dzhembulat, with a smile,
' ' when our men trusted more to prayer, and God oftener
listened to them; but now, my friends, there is a better
hope, — your valour ! Our omens are in the scabbards of our
sabres, and we must show that we are not ashamed of them.
Hark ye, Ammalat," he continued, twisting his moustache,
" I will not conceal from you that the affair may be warm.

I have just heard that Colonel K has collected his

division; but where he is, or how many troops he has,
nobody knows."

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bestiizhev 105

' ' The more Russians there are the better, ' ' replied Am-
malat, quietly; " the fewer mistakes will be made."

"And the heavier will be the plunder."

" I care not for that. I seek revenge and glory."

" Glory is a good bird, when she lays a golden egg; but
he that returns with his toroks (straps behind the saddle)
empty, is ashamed to appear before his wife. Winter is
near, and we must provide our households at the expense of
the Russians, that we may feast our friends and allies.
Choose your station, Ammalat Bek. Do you prefer to ad-
vance in front to carry off the flocks, or will you remain with
me in the rear ? I and the Abre*ks will march at a foot's
pace to restrain the pursuers."

"That is what I also intend. I will be where the greatest
peril is. But what are the Abre*ks, Dzhembulat ? "

' ' It is not easy to explain. You sometimes see several of
our boldest cavaliers take an oath, binding them for two or
three years, or as long as they like, never to mingle in games
or gaieties, never to spare their lives in battle, to give no
quarter, never to pardon the least offence in a brother or a
friend, to seize the goods of others without fear or scruple, —
in a word, to be the foes of all mankind, strangers in their
family, men whom any person may slay if he can; in the
village they are dangerous neighbours, and in meeting them
you must keep your hand on the trigger; but in war one can
trust them."

" For what motive, or reason, can the Uzdens make such
an engagement ? "

" Some simply to show their courage, others from poverty,
a third class from some misfortune. See, for instance, yon-
der tall Kabardinian ; he has sworn to be an Abre*k for five
years, since his mistress died of the smallpox. Since that
year it would be as well to make acquaintance with a tiger
as with him. He has already been wounded three times for
blood vengeance; but he cares not for that."

"Strange custom! How will he return from the life of
an Abrek to a peaceable existence ? "

" What is there strange in this? The past glides from

io6 ' The Nineteenth Century

him as water from the wild-duck. His neighbours will be
delighted when he has finished his term of brigandage.
And he, after putting off Abrekism, as a serpent sheds his
skin, will become gentle as a lamb. Among us, none but
the avenger of blood remembers yesterday. But the night
is darkening. The mists are spreading over Terek. It is
time for the work."

Dzhembulat whistled, and his whistle was repeated to all
the outposts of the camp. In a moment the whole band
was assembled. Several Uzdens joined from the neighbour-
ing friendly villages. After a short discussion as to the
passage of the river, the band moved in silence to the bank.
Ammalat Bek could not but admire the stillness, not only of
the riders, but of their horses; not one of them neighed or
snorted, and they seemed to place their feet on the ground
with caution.

They marched like a voiceless cloud, and soon they
reached the bank of T£rek, which, making a winding at this
spot, formed a promontory, and from it to the opposite shore
extended a pebbly shoal. The water over this bank was
shallow and fordable; nevertheless, a part of the detachment
left the shore higher up, in order to swim past the Cossacks,
and, diverting their attention from the principal passage, to
cover the fording party. Those who had confidence in
their horses leaped unhesitatingly from the bank, while
others tied to each fore-foot of their steeds a pair of small
skins, inflated with air like bladders: the current bore them
on, and each landed wherever he found a convenient spot.

Daybreak appeared ; the fog began to separate, and dis-
covered a picture at once magnificent and terrible. The
principal band of foragers dragged the prisoners after it, —
some were at the stirrup, others behind the saddle, with
their arms tied at their backs. Tears, and groans, and cries
of despair were stifled by the threats or frantic cries of joy of
the victors. Loaded with plunder, impeded by the flocks
and horned cattle, they advanced slowly towards the Terek.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bestiizhev 107

The princes and best cavaliers, in mail-coats and casques
glittering like water, galloped round the dense mass, as
lightning flashes round a living cloud.

In the distance were galloping up from every point the
Cossacks of the Line; they ambushed behind the shrubs and
straggling oak-trees, and soon began an irregular fire with
the brigands who were sent against them. In the mean-
time, the foremost had driven across the river a portion of
the flocks, when a cloud of dust, and the tramp of the cav-
alry, announced the approaching storm.

About six hundred mountaineers, commanded by Dzhem-
bulat and Ammalat, turned their horses to repulse the
attack, and give time to the rest to escape by the river.
Without order, but with wild cries and shouts, they dashed
forward to meet the Cossacks; but not a single gun was
taken from its belt, not a single sabre glimmered in the air:
a Circassian waits till the last moment before he seizes his
weapons. And thus, having galloped to the distance of
twenty paces, they levelled their guns, fired at full speed,
threw their fire-arms over their backs, and drew their sabres;
but the Cossacks of the Line, having replied with a volley,
began to fly, and the mountaineers, heated by the chase,
fell into a stratagem which they often employ themselves.

The Cossacks had led them up to the Chasseurs of the
brave forty-third regiment, who were concealed at the edge
of the forest. Suddenly, as if the little squares had started
out of the earth, the bayonets were levelled, and the fire
poured on them, taking them in flank. It was in vain that
the mountaineers, dismounting from their horses, essayed to
occupy the underwood and attack the Russians from the
rear; the artillery came up and decided the affair. The ex-
perienced Colonel KortsareV, the dread of the Chechenians,
the man whose bravery they feared and whose honesty and
disinterestedness they respected, directed the movements of
the troops, and success could not be doubtful. The cannon
dispersed the crowds of brigands, and their grape flew after
the flying.

The defeat was terrible; two guns, dashing at a gallop to

io8 The Nineteenth Century

the promontory, not far from which the Circassians were
throwing themselves into the river, enfiladed the stream;
with a rushing sound, the shot flew over the foaming waves,
and at each fire some of the horses might be seen to turn
over with their feet in the air, drowning their riders. It
was sad to see how the wounded clutched at the tails and
bridles of the horses of their companions, sinking them
without saving themselves, — how the exhausted struggled
against the scarped bank, endeavouring to clamber up, fell
back, and were borne away and engulfed by the furious
current. The corpses of the slain were whirled away,
mingled with the dying, and streaks of blood curled and
writhed like serpents on the foam. The smoke floated along
the Te*rek, far in the distance, and the snowy peaks of the
Caucasus, crowned with mist, bounded the field of battle.

Dzhembulat and Ammalat Bek fought desperately,—
twenty times did they rush to the attack, twenty times were
they repulsed; wearied, but not conquered, with a hundred
brigands they swam the river, dismounted, attached their
horses to each other by the bridle, and began a warm fire
from the other side of the river, to cover their surviving
comrades. Intent upon this, they remarked, too late, that
the Cossacks were passing the river above them; with a
shout, the Russians leaped upon the bank, and surrounded
them in a moment. Their fate was inevitable.

"Well, Dzhembulat," said the Bek to the Kabardinian,
' ' our lot is finished. Do you what you will : but for me, I will
not render myself a prisoner alive. 'T is better to die by a
ball than by a shameful cord ! ' '

11 Do you think," answered Dzhembulat, " that my arms
were made for a chain ? Allah keep me from such a blot !
The Russians may take my body, but not my soul. Never,
never! Brethren, comrades!" he cried to the others,
"fortune has betrayed us, but the steel will not. Let us
sell our lives dearly to the Giaour. The victor is not he
who keeps the field, but he who has the glory; and the
glory is his who prefers death to slavery ! ' '

' ' Let us die, let us die, but let us die gloriously ! ' ' cried

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bestiizhev 109

all, piercing with their daggers the sides of their horses, that
the enemy might not take them, and then piling up the dead
bodies of their steeds, they lay down behind the heap, pre-
paring to meet the attack with lead and steel.

Well aware of the obstinate resistance they were about to
encounter, the Cossacks stopped, and made ready for the
charge. The shot from the opposite bank sometimes fell in
the midst of the brave mountaineers, sometimes a grenade
exploded, covering them with earth and fragments; but they
showed no confusion, they started not, nor blenched; and,
after the custom of their country, began to sing, with a
melancholy yet threatening voice, the death-song, replying
alternately stanza for stanza.

DEATH-SONG

Chorus

" Fame to us, death to you,
Alla-ha, Alla-hu!"

Semichorus
Weep, O ye maidens, on mountain and valley,

L,if t the dirge for the souls of the brave !
We have fired our last bullet, have made our last rally,

And Caucasus gives us a grave.
Here the soft pipe no more shall invite us to slumber, —

The thunder our lullaby sings;
Our eyes not the maiden's dark tresses shall cumber,

Them the raven shall shade with his wings!
Forget, O my children, your father's stern duty, —
No more shall he bring ye the Muscovite booty! "

Second Semichorus
Weep not, ye maidens! Your sisters in splendour,

The Houris, they bend from the sky,
They fix on the brave their sun-glance deep and tender,

And to Paradise bear him on high !
In your feast-cup, my brethren, forget not our story :
The death of the Free is the noblest of glory! "

no The Nineteenth Century

First Semichorm

" Roar, winter torrent, and sullenly dash!
But where is the brave one, — the swift lightning-flash ?

Soft star of my soul, my mother,

Sleep, the fire let ashes smother;
Gaze no more, thine eyes are weary,

Sit not by the threshold stone ;
Gaze not through the night-fog dreary,

Bat thine evening meal alone,
Seek him not, O mother, weeping,

By the cliff and by the ford!
On a bed of dust he 's sleeping, —

Broken is both heart and sword! "

Second Semichorus

" Mother, weep not! with thy love burning:

This heart of mine beats full and free,
And to lion-blood is turning

That soft milk I drew from thee;
And our liberty from danger

Thy brave son has guarded well ;
Battling with the Christian stranger,

Called by Azrael, he fell;
From my blood fresh odours breathing,

Fadeless flowers shall drink the dew;
To my children fame bequeathing,

Brethren, and revenge to you! "

Chorus

" Pray, my brethren, ere we part:

Clutch the steel with hate and wrath!
Break it in the Russian's heart, —
O'er corses lies the brave man's path!
Fame to us, death to you,
Alla-ha, Alla-hu!"

Ivan Ivanovich Lazh£chnikov

1 1 1

Struck by a certain involuntary awe, the Chasseurs and
Cossacks listened in silence to the stern sounds of this song ;
but at last a loud hurrah resounded from both sides. The
Circassians, with a shout, fired their guns for the last time,
and breaking them against the stones, they threw them-
selves dagger in hand, upon the Russians. The Abreks
in order that their line might not be broken, bound them-
selves to each other with their girdles, and hurled themselves
into the melee. Quarter was neither asked nor given : all
fell before the bayonets of the Russians.

" Forward! Follow me, Ammalat Bek," cried Dzhembu-
lat, with fury, rushing into the combat which was to be his
last : ' ' Forward ! For us death is liberty ! ' '

But Ammaldt heard not his call : a blow from a musket on
the back of the head stretched him on the earth, already
sown with corpses and covered with blood. — Transl. by
Thomas B. Shaw, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,
vol. liii. (1843).

Iv£n Ivdnovich Lazhechnikov. (1794-1869.)

Lazhe"chnikov was the most famous of Russian novelists before
Gogol. His father was a rich grain and salt merchant in the city of
Kol6mna, and he spared no money for the education of his son. At
sixteen years Lazhechnikov wrote his Thoughts in Imitation of La
Bruyere, which was published in The Messenger of Europe. His
father having lost all his property, he accepted a government posi-
tion, but in 1812 joined the army and with it went through the whole
French campaign. In 1819 appeared his Campaign Memoirs of a
Russian Officer, which are full of youthful ardour, patriotism, and a
consciousness of the European importance of Russia. Having at-
tracted the attention of the Court, he received various appointments,
but again left the service in 1826. He then wrote his three great
novels on which his reputation rests, namely, The Last Noviks, The
Ice House, and The Heretic. His later stories did not sustain his
fame.

In English has appeared The Heretic, translated from the Russian
of LajetchnikofF, by Thomas B. Shaw (in three volumes), Edinburgh
and London, 1844, and again, under the title The Heretic and the
Maid of Moscow, a Romance of Russia, by Thos. B. Shaw, London,
1849.

ii2 The Nineteenth Century

THE HERETIC

PROLOGUE

It was the 27th of October, 1505. As if for the coronation
of a Tsar, Moscow was decorated and adorned. The Cathe-
dral of the Assumption, the Church of the Annunciation,
the Stone Palace, the Tower Palace, the Kreml with its
towers, a multitude of stone churches and houses scattered
over the city — all this, just come out of the hands of skilful
architects, bore the stamp of freshness and newness, as if it
had risen up in one day by an almighty will. In reality,
all this had been created in a short time by the genius of
loann III. A person who, thirty years back, had left Mos-
cow, poor, insignificant, resembling a large village, sur-
rounded by hamlets, would not have recognised it had he
seen it now; so soon had all Russia arisen at the single
manly call of this great genius.

Taking the colossal infant under his princely guardian-
ship, he had torn off its swaddling bands, and not by years,
but by hours, he reared it to a giant vigour. Novgorod and
Pskov, which had never vailed their bonnet to mortal man,
had yet doffed it to him, and had even brought him the
tribute of liberty and gold: the yoke of the Khans had been
cast off, and hurled beyond the frontiers of the Russian
land ; Kazdn, though she had taken cover from the mighty
hunter, yet had taken cover like the she-wolf that has no
earth, — her territories had melted away, and were united
into one mighty appanage; and the ruler who created all
this was the first Russian sovereign who realised the idea of
a Tsar.

Nevertheless, on the 27th of October, 1505, the Moscow
which he had thus adorned was preparing for a spectacle not
joyful but melancholy. loann, enfeebled in mind and body,
lay upon his death-bed. He had forgotten his great exploits ;
he remembered only his sins, and repented of them.

It was towards the evening-tide. In the churches gleamed
the lonely lamps; through the mica and bladder panes of the
windows glimmered the fires, kindled in their houses by faith

Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov 113

or by necessity. But nowhere was it popular love which
had lighted them; for the people did not comprehend the
services of the great man, and loved him not for his innova-
tions. At one corner of the prison, the Black House, but
later than the other houses, was illumined by a weak and
flickering light. On the bladder which was the substitute
for glass in the window, the iron grating, with its spikes,
threw a net-like shadow, which was only relieved by a speck,
at one moment glittering like a spark, at another emitting a
whirling stream of vapour. It was evident that the prisoner
had made this opening in the bladder, in order, unperceived
by his guards, to look forth upon the light of heaven.

This was part of the prison, and in it even now was pining
a youthful captive. He seemed not more than twenty. So
young ! What early transgression could have brought him
here ? From his face you would not believe in such trans-
gressions; you would not believe that God could have
created that fair aspect to deceive. So handsome and so
noble that you would think never had one evil intention
passed over that tranquil brow, never had one passion played
in those eyes, filled with love to his neighbour and calm
melancholy. And yet, by his tall and majestic figure, as he
starts from his reverie, and shakes his raven curls, he seems
to be born a lord, and not a slave. His hands are white
and delicate as a woman's. On the throat of his shirt blazes
a button of emerald; in the damp and smoky room, on a
broad bench against the wall, are a feather-bed with a pillow
of damask, and with a silken covering; and by the bedside
a coffer of white bone in filigree work. Evidently he is not
a common prisoner. No common prisoner! — no, he is a
crowned prince!— and pure in thought and deed as the
dwellers of the skies.

All his crime is a diadem, which he did not seek, and
which was placed on his head by the caprice of his sovereign ;
in no treason, in no crime had he been accomplice; he was
guilty by the guilt of others, — by the ambition of two
women, the intrigues of the courtiers, the anger of his grand-
father against the others, and not against him. They had

VOL. II.— 8.

ii4 The Nineteenth Century-

destined him a throne, and they had dragged him to a dun-
geon. He understood not why they crowned him, and now
he understands not why they deprived him of liberty, — of
the light of heaven, — of all that they deny not even to the
meanest. For him his nearest kinsman dared not even pray
aloud.

This was the grandson of Ivan III., the only child of his
beloved son, — Dmitri Ivanovich.

At one time he sat in melancholy musing, resting his
elbows on his knees, and losing his fingers in the dark curls
of his hair; then he would arise, then lie down. He was
restless as though they had given him poison. No one was
with him. A solitary taper lighted up his miserable abode.
The stillness of the room was disturbed only by the drops
from the ceiling, or the mice nibbling the crumbs that had
fallen from the captive's table.* The little light now died
away, now flared up again; and in these flashes it seemed
as though rows of gigantic spiders crept along the wall. In
reality, these were scribbling in various languages, scrawled
with charcoal or with a nail. Hardly was it possible to spell
out among them — " Matheas," " Marfa, burgomistress of

N6vgorod the Great," "Accursed be ," " Liebe Mutter,

Hebe A ' ' ; and several words more, half obliterated by

the damp which had trickled along the wall, or been scratched
out by the anger or the ignorance of the guards.

The door of the dungeon softly opened. Dmitri Ivanovich
started up. "Afoniya, is it thou ? " he joyfully enquired;
but seeing that he had mistaken for another the person who
entered, he exclaimed sadly: "Ah, is it thou, Nebogdty!
Why cometh not Af6niya? I am sad, I am lonely, I am
devoured by grief, as if a serpent lay at my heart. Didst
thou not say that Afoniya would come as soon as they
lighted the candles in the houses ? ' '

"Afanasi Nikftin ' hath a mind as single as his eye," said
the deacon Dmitri Nebogaty, a kind and good-natured offi-
cer, yet strict in the performance of the charge given him by
the Great Prince, of guarding his grandson. (We may re-
1 See vol. i., p. in.

Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov 115

mark that at this time he, in consequence of the illness of
Dmitri, the treasurer and groom of the bedchamber, fulfilled
their duties. All honour to a prince, even though he be a
prisoner!)

" Make thyself easy, Dmitri Ivanovich; soon, be sure,
will come our orator. Thou wottest thyself he groweth
infirm, he seeth not well, and so must grope along the wall;
and till he cometh, my dear child, play, amuse thyself with
thy toys. Sit down cozily on thy bed ; I will give thee thy
coffer."

And Dmitri Ivanovich, a child, though he was more than
twenty years old, to escape from the weariness that oppressed
him, instantly accepted the proposition of his deacon, sat
down with his feet on his bed, took the ivory box upon his
knees, and opened it with a key that hung at his girdle.
By degrees, one after the other, he drew out into the light a
number of precious articles which had been imprisoned in
the coffer.

The young prince held up to the fire, now a chain of gold
with bears' heads carved on the links, or a girdle of scaly
gold, then signet rings of jacinth or emerald, then crucifixes,
collars, bracelets, precious studs: he admired them, threw
the collars round his neck, and asked the deacon whether
they became him ; took orient pearls and rubies by the hand-
ful, let them stream like rain through his fingers, amused
himself in playing with them, like an absolute child — and
suddenly, hearing a voice in the neighbouring chamber,
threw them all back anyhow into the coffer. His face
lighted up.

" 'T is Afoniya! " he cried, giving back the box to the
deacon, and descending from the bed.

' ' L,ock it, Dmitri Ivanovich ! ' ' said Nebogdty firmly :
" without that I will not receive it."

Hastily clinked the key in the coffer; the door opened,
and there entered the room an old man of low stature, bowed
down by the burden of years; the silver of his hair was
already becoming golden with age. From the top of his
head to the corner of his left eye was deeply gashed a scar,

n6 ' The Nineteenth Century

which had thus let fall an eternal curtain before that eye,
and therefore the other was fixed in its place, like a precious
stone of wondrous water, for it glittered with unusual bril-
liancy, and seemed to see for itself and for its unfortunate
twin brother. No son more affectionately meets a tenderly
beloved father than Dmitri Ivdnovich met the old man.
Joy sparkled in the eyes of the Tsarevich, and spoke in his
every gesture.

He took his guest's walking-staff, shook from his dress
the powdered snow, embraced him, and seated him in the
place of honour on his bed. Nevertheless, the guest was no
more than Afanasi Nikftin, a merchant of Tver, a trader
without trade, without money, poor, but rich in knowledge,
which he had acquired in an adventurous journey to India,
rich in experience and fancies, which he knew how to adorn
beside with a sweet and enchanting eloquence. He lived on
the charity of his friends, and yet was no man's debtor: the
rich he paid with his tales, and to the poor he gave them for
nothing. He was allowed to visit the Great Prince Dmitri
Ivdnovich (whom, however, it was forbidden to call Great
Prince). We may judge how delightfully he filled up the
dreadful solitude of the youth's imprisonment, and how dear
he therefore was to the captive. And what did Dmitri give
him for his labour ? Much, very much to a good heart, —
his delight, the only pleasure left him in the world,— and
this reward the Tver man would not have exchanged for
gold. Once the TsareVich had desired to present him with
one of the precious articles from his ivory box; but the
deacon gently reminded the captive that all the articles in
his coffer were his, that he might play with them as much
as he pleased, but that he was not at liberty to dispose of
them.

The day before Afanasi Nikitin had begun a tale about
the "Almayne," surnamed the Heretic. To-day, when he
had seated himself, he continued it. His speech flowed on
like the song of a nightingale, which we listen to from the
flush of morning till the glow of eve without shutting our
eyes even for a moment. Greedily did the Tsarevich listen

Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov 117

to the story-teller, his cheeks burned, and often tears streamed
from his eyes. Far, very far, he was borne away from his
dungeon, and only from time to time the rude brawling of
the guards behind the partition-wall recalled him to bitter
reality. In the meantime the deacon Nebogdty's pen was
hurriedly scratching along the parchment: the sheets, pasted
one to another in a long line, were fast covered with strange
hieroglyphics, and wound up into a huge roll. He was
writing down from Afanasi Nikitin's mouth, A tale touching
a certain Almayne^ surnamed the Heretic.

Suddenly, in the midst of the tale, there rushed into the
dungeon the court officer of the Great Prince. " Ivan Vas-
ilevich is about to render up his soul to God," said he
hastily; " he grieveth much about thee, and hath sent for
thee. Make haste!"

The prince was convulsively agitated. Over his face,
which became as white as a sheet, passed some thought; it
flashed in his eyes. Oh, this was a thought of Paradise!

Freedom a crown the people mercy perhaps

a block what was there not in that thought ? The cap-
tive— the child who had just been playing with jewels —
arose the Great Prince of all Russia.

Ivan was still a sovereign, though on his dying bed; death
had not yet locked for ever his lips, and those lips might yet
determine on his successor. The thoughts of another life,
remorse, an interview with his grandson, whom he had
himself of his own free will crowned Tsar, and whom they
had just brought from a dungeon, — what force must these
thoughts have on the will of the dying man !

They gave the prince his bonnet, and just as he stood 9
conducted by the deacon and other officers, he hastened to
the Great Prince's palace. In the hall he encountered the
sobbing of the kinsmen and servants of the Tsar. "It is
over! — My grandsire is dead! " thought he, and his heart
sunk within him, his steps tottered.

The appearance of Dmitri Ivanovich in the palace of the
Great Prince interrupted for a time the general lamenta-
tion, real and feigned. The unexpectedness, the novelty

1 1 8 ' The Nineteenth Century

of the object, the strange fate of the prince, pity, the thought
that he, perhaps, would be the sovereign of Russia in a mo-
ment, overwhelmed the minds and hearts of the courtiers.
But even at this period there were among the long-beards
some wise heads: acute, far-sighted calculations, which we
now call politics, were then as now oracles of fate, and
though sometimes, as happens even in our own days, they
were overthrown by the mighty hand of Providence.

These calculations triumphed over the momentary aston-
ishment; the tears and sobbing began again, and were
communicated to the crowd. Only one voice, amidst the
expressions of simulated woe, ventured to raise itself above
them: " Haste, my lord, our native prince, — thou hast been
sent for no short time, — Ivan Vasilevich is yet alive, — the
lyord bless thee, and make thee our Great Prince ! ' '

This voice reassured the youth ; but when he was about
to enter the bedchamber where the dying man lay, his
strength began to fail. The door opened; his feet seemed
nailed to the threshold. Ivdn had only a few minutes left
to live. It seemed as if death awaited only the arrival of
his grandson, to give him his dismissal. Around his bed
stood his sons, the primate, his favourite boydrs, his kins-
men.

" Hither,— to me, Dmitri,— my dear grandson," said the
Great Prince, recognising him through the mists of death.

Dmitri Ivanovich threw himself towards the bed, fell upon
his knees, kissed the cold hand of his grandsire, and bedewed
it with tears. The dying man, as if by the power of galvan-
ism, raised himself, laid one hand on his grandson's head,
with the other blessed him, then spoke in a breathless voice:
" I have sinned before God and thee Forgive me for-
give The Lord and I have crowned thee be

my "

The face of Vasili lodnnovich was convulsed with envy
and fear. Yet one word more

But death then stood on the side of the strongest, and that
word was never pronounced in this world. The Great
Prince Ivan Vasilevich yielded up his last breath, applying

Ivan Ivanovich Lazh£chnikov 119

his cold lips to the forehead of his grandson. His son, who
had been earlier designated by him as his heir, immediately
entered into all his rights. They tore Dmitri from the
death-bed, led him out of the Great Prince's palace, and
conducted him back to his dungeon. There, stretched on
his bed, was reposing Af6niya in the deep slumber of the
just. Having bewailed his woes, the ill-fated Dmitri lay
down beside the old man. Prince and peasant were there
equal. The one dreamed that night of royal banquets, and
of a glorious crown, glittering like fire, upon his head, and
of giving audience to foreign ambassadors, and reviewing
vast armies; the other, of the hospitable palm and the
rivulet in the deserts of Arabia. The poor man awaked the
first, and how was he surprised to find the Tsarevich by his
side ! Mournfully he shook his hoary head, and wept, and
was about to bless him, when he heard the joyful gallant cry

of Dmitri Ivanovich as he dreamed — ' * Warriors ! on

the Tartars! on Lithuania! "

And immediately awoke the young prince. Long he
rubbed his eyes, and gazed around him, and then, falling
on Af6niya's bosom, he melted into tears. "Ah, father,
father, I have been dreaming "

His words were strangled by sobs.

Soon all that he had seen and heard in the palace of the
Great Prince began to appear to him as a dream. Only
when he recalled to his memory that weary vision, he felt
on his forehead the icy seal which had been placed on it by
the lips of the dying Tsar.

The winter came: all was as before in the Black House;
nothing but the decorations of the scene had changed : the
uniform sound of the falling drops was dumb, the bright
speck had vanished from the bladder window-pane ; instead,
a silvery film of frost adhered to the corners of the walls and
the crevices of the ceiling, and the bright speck, through
which the captive could see the heavens, with their sun and
free birds, was veiled with a thick patch. But Af6niya, as
of old, visited the dungeon. He had finished his tale of the
Almayne, whom they called the Heretic, and the scribe

120 ' The Nineteenth Century

Nebogaty, putting it on paper word for word, had placed
the roll in his iron chest, —an amusement for his descendants.

Thus passed a little more than three years.

The royal prisoner was no longer in the dungeon, and
Afanasi Nikitin was seen no more within it. Assuredly
Dmitri Ivdnovich had been set at liberty. Yes, the Lord
had set him free from all earthly bonds. Thus writes an
annalist: "In the year 1509, on the fourteenth of February,
departed this life the Grand Prince Dmitri Ivdnovich, in
prison." Gerberstein adds: " It is thought he was starved
— with cold or with hunger — to death, or stifled with
smoke." — From The Heretic, translated from the Russian by
Thomas B. Shaw, Edinburgh and London, 1844.

Baron Ant6n Ant6novich Delvig. (1798-1831.)

Delvig entered the Lyceum at Tsarskoe-Sel6 on the same day with
Pushkin, whose friend he remained to his death. He began writing
poetry at about the same time as his more gifted schoolmate. At
first he confined himself to more or less close imitations of Horace,
but under Pushkin's influence he soon turned his attention to original
poems. Though only a star of the second magnitude, his verses be-
came very popular and were set to music. Later they served as the
starting-point for the popular poets, Kolts6v, Nekrdsov, and others.

GLOOMY THOUGHTS

To-day I feast with you, dear friends,

With joy our spirits burn;
To-morrow's chance may find me there

Whence I shall not return.

Thus, long ago, I spake to those

Who were with merriment wild;
For gloomy thoughts of coming grief

Possessed me from a child.

My laughing friends around my locks

Knwreathed a fresh bright crown;
" For shame! " they cried; " youth 's not a time

To wear a moody frown."

Baron Ant6n Antonovich Delvig 121

War breaking out, my friends to it

As to a banquet prest;
I with them ; but me cruel fate

Soon parted from the rest.

In weary idleness their steps

I followed mentally;
And oft their relatives I cheered

With words of victory.

Time passed: the thoughts of days gone by

Sad tears of sorrow yield;
Then ceased the war. Where are my friends ?

Dead on the battlefield.

Now I am sorrowful at feasts,

Where others' joy is great;
In wine-cups e'en the past recalled

Embitters all my state.

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

Sang a little bird, and sang,

And grew silent ;
Knew the heart of merriment,

And forgot it.
Why, O little songster bird,

Grew you quiet ?
How learned you, O heart, to know

Gloomy sorrow ?
Ah ! the little bird was killed

By grim snow-blasts;
Perished is the fellow brave

Through ill gossips!
Had the bird but flown away

Tow'rds the blue sea!
Had the youth but run away

Tow'rds the forest!

122 The Nineteenth Century

On the sea the billows roar,
And not snow-blasts;

In the woods are evil beasts,
And not people !

Ah, you night, you little night!
Ah, you night, you stormy night!
Why from early evening tide
Even to the midnight late
Twinkle not your little stars,
Shineth not your full-orbed moon ?
You are veiled with darkling clouds !
'T is with you, I think, O night,
Even as with me, young man, —
Villain grief has called on us !
When the dire one takes abode
Somewhere deep within the heart, —
You forget the lasses fair,
Dances and obeisances;
You forget from evening tide
Even to the midnight late,
Singing songs, to take delight
In the chorus and the dance.
No, you sob, you weep aloud, —
And, a sad and lonely lad,
You upon your coarse straw bed
Throw yourself as in the grave !

Aleksdndr Sergyeevich Ptishkin. (1799-1837.)

Pushkin was descended, on his father's side, from a family of dis-
tinguished men, and, on his mother's side, from Peter the Great's
favourite negro, Hannibal. Having early lost his mother, he was
brought up by his grandmother, but the greatest influence upon his
first education had his nurse, Arina Rodi6novna, who charmed him
with her rich stock of popular stories and fairy tales, and who, even
later in life, inspired him with national themes. In 1811 Pushkin
entered the newly opened Lyceum at Tsdrskoe Sel6, where he did not
display any especial aptitude for studies ; but he soon began to write

Aleks^ndr Sergyeevich Piishkin 123

poetry, and in 1817, at graduation, read his own production which
attracted attention. After leaving school he threw himself into
the whirl of society pleasures, but at the same time devoted himself
to his first great poem, still in the Romantic style of the older gener-
ation, Ruslan and Lyudmila. In 1820 he incurred the displeasure of
the Government for writing some verses on liberty and for his liberal
utterances. He was banished to the south, passing part of the time
in the Caucasus. Here his genius was unfolded in all its greatness.
In the Caucasus he wrote The Prisoner of the Caucasus ; the Crimea
gave him material for his Bakhchisar&y Fountain ; in the neighbour-
hood of Odessa he composed his Gypsies and laid the foundation for
Evgeni Onyegin, besides writing a large number of smaller poems.
In 1824 Pushkin was permitted to return to his native village, in the
Government of Pskov, where he remained two years, after which he
was, by the intercession of his friends, allowed to settle in the capi-
tals. In this last period of his activity he devoted himself more
especially to subjects taken from Russian life. He wrote his series of
fairy tales, illustrated the acts of Peter the Great by a number of
poems, of which The Bronze Rider is the best known, and wrote a
History of the Pugachev Rebellion. Aspersion upon his domestic
life caused him to challenge to a duel the son of the Dutch ambassa-
dor, by whom he was killed in 1837, in his thirty-eighth year.

Pushkin's great poetical genius has not been surpassed by that of
any other Russian poet, and has only been equalled by that of L£r-
montov. All the later generations have drawn their inspiration from
him. Since the forties his importance has been obscured by the
universal domination of the democratic spirit in literature, as evi-
denced in the Russian novel. The celebration of the centennary an-
niversary of his birth has given rise to a wide-spread interest in
Pushkin, and his influence is again in the ascendant.

Pushkin's prose tales have often been translated into English :
Queen of Spades, in Chambers's Papers, 1850, and Living Age, 1850,
also in Gift of Friendship, 1854 ; The Captain's Daughter, translated
by J. F. Hanstein, London, 1859 > some tales in Simple Tales, a
Reading Book for Little Folks, by Mary Anna Pietzker, St. Peters-
burg, 1860 ; The Pistolshot, in the Albion, 1861 ; Russian Romance
(consisting of miscellaneous tales), by Mrs. J. B. Telfer (nee Mour-
aviefF), London, 1873 and 1880; Queen of Spades, in Lippincott's
Magazine, 1876; Marie, a Story of Russian Love, by Marie H. de
Zielinska, Chicago, 1877 (1876) ; The Captain's Daughter, a Tale of
the Time of Catherine II. of Russia, translated by Madame Igel-
strom and Mrs. Percy Hasten, London, 1883 ; Queen of Spades, in
Modern Age, 1884 ; The Daughter of the Commandant, a Russian
Romance, translated by Mrs. Milne Home, London, 1891 ; The Queen

124 The Nineteenth Century

of Spades and Other Stories, from the Russian, by Mrs. Sutherland
Edwards (the first three stories had appeared before in the Strand
Magazine), London, 1892 ; Tales from the Russian, I. — Dubrovsky
(in Railway and General Automatic Library), London, 1892 ; The
Prose Tales of A. Poushkin, from the Russian, by T. Keane, London,
1894 and 1896.

Of his poetical works the following have been translated : Extracts
from Ruslan and Lyudmila, The Prisoner, The Robbers, in Russian
Literature and Poetry, in Foreign Review, 1827 ; extracts from The
Fountain of Bakhchisaray and Poltava in The Foreign Quarterly
Review, 1832 ; The Talisman, with Other Pieces ( The Hermit}, trans-
lated by George Borrow, St. Petersburg, 1835 ; Pushkin, the Russian

Poet (containing October ig, 1825, Caucasus, To , The Mob, The

Black Shawl, The Rose, Napoleon, The Storm, The General, Alas
for Her, To the Sea, Echo, The Lay of the Wise Oleg, Remem-
brance, I have outlived the hopes that charmed me, Motion, To the
Slanderers of Russia, Presentiment, The Madonna, Andre Chenier),
by T. B. Shaw, in The Edinburgh Blackwood Magazine, 1845 ; The
Bakhchesarian Fountain, W. D. Lewis, Philadelphia, 1849; several
poems, by W. R. Morfill, in Constitutional Press, 1860 ; On the
Calumniators of Russia, by W. R. Morfill, in Literary Gazette, 1861 ;
Translations from Russian and German Poets, by a Russian Lady
(containing two extracts from The Gypsies, The Poet, The Angel,
The igth of October, The Demon, and several minor poems), Baden-
Baden, 1878 ; Eugene Oneguine, translated by Lieut. Col. Spalding,
London, 1881 ; The Black Shawl, The Talisman, Ode to the Sea, and
several extracts (the first two, amended, in The Story of Russia, New
York and London, 1890), by W. R. Morfill, in Westminster Review,
1883; The Flower, The Birds, The Bridegroom, The Winter Journey,

The Anchor, Poltava, Song of Oleg the Wise, To , The Angel,

The Demons, in C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, London, 1887 ; Poems
by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Ivan Panin, Boston, 1888 ; parts
of Boris Godunov in Shakespeare and the Russian Drama, by N. H.
Dole, in Poet Lore, vol. i. (1889) ; / wander down the noisy streets,
Anacreontic, To his Wife, Let me not lose my senses, I've overlived
aspirings, Peter the Great, The Prophet, Play, My Kathleen, A Monu-
ment, The Poet, in John Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian, London,
1891. In Free Russia have appeared : by Charlotte Sidgwick, in vol.
x., No. i, The Poison-Tree, ib., No. 3, The Monument ; by Mrs. M.
G. Walker, in vol. x., No. 4, The Prophet; by Elizabeth Gibson, vol.
xii., No. 2, A Message. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society have
been published : some verses, by a Russian lady, in No. n ; by F. P.
Marchant, Scene from "Boris Godunov," in No. 13, The Shield of
Oleg, in No. 15, The Prophet, The Three Springs, The Prayer, Truth,

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 125

in No. 22, To My Friends, in No. 32 ; by J. Pollen, The Talisman,
in No. 22 ; by Miss H. Frank, The Demons, in No. 34 ; by L. A. Mag-
nus, Through clamorous streets my feet may stray, in No. 33. In the
Library of the World's Best Literature are given : by N. H. Dole, The
Bard, The Angel, The Free Life of the Bird (a different version of
this poem is given below) ; reprints of several of T. B. Shaw's and J.
Pollen's poems, and extracts from Boris Godunov and Evgeni
Onyegin, by Miss I. Hapgood.

FROM "THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER"

As I crossed the square I saw several Bashkirs assembled
round the gibbets, engaged in dragging off the boots of those
who had been hanged. With difficulty I repressed my in-
dignation, feeling convinced that if I gave expression to
it, it would have been perfectly useless. The brigands in-
vaded every part of the fortress, and plundered the officers'
houses. On every side resounded the shouts of the drunken
mutineers. I reached home. Save*lich met me on the
threshold.

"Thank God! " he exclaimed when he saw me; "I was
beginning to think that the villains had seized you again.
Ah! my little father, Peter Andrdich, will you believe it,
the robbers have plundered us of everything — clothes, linen,
furniture, plate — they have not left us a single thing. But
what does it matter ? Thank God ! they have spared your
life. But, my lord, did you recognise their leader ? "

" No, I did not recognise him. Who is he then ? "

' * How, my little father ! Have you forgotten that drunken
scoundrel who swindled you out of the pelisse at the inn ?
A brand new hairskin pelisse ; and the beast burst the seams
in putting it on."

I was astounded. In truth, the resemblance of PugacheV
to my guide was very striking. I felt convinced that Pug-
achev and he were one and the same person, and then I
understood why he had spared my life. I could not but feel
surprised at the strange connection of events — a child's pe-
lisse, given to a roving vagrant, had saved me from the hang-
man's noose, and a drunkard, who had passed his life in

i26 The Nineteenth Century

wandering from one inn to another, was now besieging
fortresses and shaking the empire!

4 'Will you not eat something?" asked Save*lich, still
faithful to his old habits. ' ' There is nothing in the house ;
but I will go and search, and get something ready for you."

When I was left alone, I began to reflect. What was I to
do ? To remain in the fortress now that it was in the hands
of the villain, or to join his band, was unworthy of an officer.
Duty demanded that I should go wherever my services
might still be of use to my fatherland in the present critical

position of its affairs But love strongly urged me to

remain near Maria Ivanovna and be her protector and de-
fender. Although I foresaw a speedy and inevitable change
in the course of affairs, yet I could not help trembling when
I thought of the danger of her situation. My reflections
were interrupted by the arrival of one of the Cossacks, who
came to inform me that " the great Tsar required me to
appear before him."

" Where is he ? " I asked, preparing to obey.

" In the Commandant's house," replied the Cossack.
"After dinner our father took a bath, but at present he is
resting. Ah ! your Excellency, it is very evident that he is
a distinguished person; at dinner he deigned to eat two
roasted sucking pigs, then he entered the bath, where the
water was so hot that even Tards Kurochkin could not bear
it; he had to give the besom to Fomkd Bikbdev, and only
came to himself through having cold water poured over him.

There is no denying it; all his ways are majestic And

I was told that in the bath he showed his Tsar's signs upon
his breast: on one side a two-headed eagle as large as a five-
kopek piece, and on the other his own likeness. ' '

I did not consider it necessary to contradict the Cossack's
statement, and I accompanied him to the Commandant's
house, trying to imagine beforehand what kind of a recep-
tion I should meet with from PugacheV, and endeavouring
to guess how it would end. The reader will easily under-
stand that I did not by any means feel easy within myself.

It was beginning to get dark when I reached the Com-

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Ptishkin 127

mandant's house. The gibbet, with its victims, loomed
black and terrible before me. The body of the poor Com-
mandant's wife still lay at the bottom of the steps, near
which two Cossacks stood on guard. The Cossack who ac-
companied me went in to announce me, and, returning
almost immediately, conducted me into the room where, the
evening before, I had taken a tender farewell of Maria
Ivanovna. An unusual spectacle presented itself to my
gaze. At a table, covered with a cloth and loaded with
bottles and glasses, sat Pugachev and some half a score of
Cossack chiefs, in coloured caps and shirts, heated with wine,
with flushed faces and flashing eyes. I did not see among
them Shvabrin and his fellow traitor, the orderly.

"Ah! your Excellency!" said Pugachev, seeing me.
" Welcome; honour to you and a place at our banquet."

The guests moved closer together. I sat down silently at
the end of the table. My neighbour, a young Cossack, tall
and handsome, poured out for me a glass of wine, which,
-however, I did not touch. I began to observe the company
with curiosity. Pugachev occupied the seat of honour, his
elbows resting on the table, and his broad fist propped
under his black beard. His features, regular and sufficiently
agreeable, had nothing fierce about them. He frequently
turned to speak to a man of about fifty years of age, address-
ing him sometimes as Count, sometimes as Timofe*ich, some-
times as uncle. All those present treated each other as
comrades, and did not show any particular respect for their
leader. The conversation was upon the revolt, and of their
future operations. Bach one boasted of what he had done,
expressed his opinion, and fearlessly contradicted Pugache* v.
And in this strange council of war it was resolved to march
upon Orenburg; a bold movement, and which was to be
very nearly crowned with success. The march was fixed
for the following day.

" Now, lads," said PugacheV, "before we retire to rest,
let us have my favourite song. Chumak6v, begin! "

My neighbour sang, in a shrill voice, the following melan-
choly peasant's song, and all joined in the chorus:

128 The Nineteenth Century

" Stir not, mother, green forest of oak,
Disturb me not in my meditation;
For to-morrow before the court I must go,
Before the stern judge, before the Tsar himself.
The great Lord Tsar will begin to question me:

I Tell me, young man, tell me, thou peasant's son,
With whom have you stolen, with whom have you robbed ?
Did you have many companions with you ? '

I 1 will tell you, true-believing Tsar,
The whole truth I will confess to you.
My companions were four in number:
My first companion was the dark night,
My second companion was a steel knife,
My third companion was my good horse,
My fourth companion was my taut bow,
My messengers were my tempered arrows.'
Then speaks my hope, the true-believing Tsar:
' Well done, my lad, brave peasant's son;

You knew how to steal, you knew how to reply:
Therefore, my lad, I will make you a present
Of a very high structure in the midst of a field —
Of two upright posts with a cross-beam above.' "

It is impossible to describe the effect produced upon me
by this popular gallows song, trolled out by men destined
for the gallows. Their ferocious countenances, their sonor-
ous voices, and the melancholy expression which they
imparted to the words, which in themselves were not very
expressive, filled me with a sort of poetical terror.

The guests drank another glass, then rose from the table
and took leave of Pugache* v.

I wanted to follow them, but PugacheV said to me:

" Sit down; I want to speak to you."

We remained face to face.

For some moments we both continued silent. PugacheV
looked at me fixedly, every now and then winking his left
eye with a curious expression of craftiness and drollery.
At last he burst out laughing, and with such unfeigned

Aleksandr Sergy£evich Piishkin 129

merriment that I, too, looking at him, began to laugh,
without knowing why.

" Well, your lordship," he said to me, " confess now, you
were in a terrible fright when my fellows put the rope round
your neck. I do not believe that the sky appeared bigger

than a sheepskin to you just then You would have

been strung up to the crossbeam if it had not been for your
servant. I knew the old fellow at once. Well, would your
lordship have thought that the man who conducted you to
the inn was the great Tsar himself ? "

Here he assumed an air of mystery and importance.

" You have been guilty of a serious offence against me,"
continued he, * ' but I pardoned you on account of your
virtue, and because you rendered me a service when I was
compelled to hide myself from my enemies. But you will
see something very different presently ! You will see how I
will reward you when I enter into possession of my king-
dom! Will you promise to serve me with zeal ? "

The rascal's question, and his insolence, appeared to me
so amusing that I could not help smiling.

" Why do you smile? " he asked, frowning. " Perhaps
you do not believe that I am the great Tsar ? Is that so ? —
Answer plainly ! ' *

I became confused. To acknowledge a vagabond as em-
peror was quite out of the question ; to do so seemed to me
unpardonable cowardice. To tell him to his face that he
was an imposter was to expose myself to certain death, and
that which I was prepared to say beneath the gibbet before
the eyes of the crowd, in the first outburst of my indigna-
tion, appeared to me now a useless boast. I hesitated. In
gloomy silence Pugachev awaited my reply. At last (and
even now I remember that moment with self-satisfaction) the
sentiment of duty triumphed over my human weakness. I
replied to Pugachev:

" listen, I will tell you the whole truth. Judge yourself:
can I acknowledge you as emperor ? You, a sensible man,
would know that it would not be saying what I really
thought."

130 The Nineteenth Century

" Who am I, then, in your opinion ? "

" God only knows; but whatever you may be, you are
playing a dangerous game. ' '

Pugachev threw a rapid glance at me.

"Then you do not believe," said he, "that I am the
Emperor Peter? Well, be it so. But is not success the
reward of the bold ? Did not Grishka Otre*pev reign in
former days ? Think of me what you please, but do not
leave me. What does it matter to you one way or the
other? Whoever is pope is father. Serve me faithfully
and truly, and I will make you a field-marshal and a prince.
What do you say ? ' '

" No," I replied with firmness. " I am by birth a noble-
man; I have taken the oath of fealty to the Empress; I can-
not serve you. If you really wish me well, send me back to
Orenburg."

Pugachev reflected.

" But if I let you go," said he, " will you at least promise
not to serve against me ? "

" How can I promise you that ? " I replied. " You your-
self know that it does not depend upon my will. If I am
ordered to march against you, I must go — there is no help
for it. You yourself are now a chief; you demand obedience
from your followers. How would it seem if I refused to
serve when my services were needed ? My life is in your
hands; if you set me free, I will thank you; if you put me
to death, God will be your judge; but I have told you the
truth."

My frankness struck PugacheV.

"Be it so," said he, slapping me upon the shoulder.
" One should either punish completely or pardon com-
pletely. Go then where you like. Come to-morrow to say
good-bye to me, and now go to bed. I feel very drowsy
myself."

I left Pugachev and went out into the street. The night
was calm and cold. The moon and stars were shining
brightly, lighting up the square and the gibbet. In the
fortress all was dark and still. Only in the tavern was a

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 131

light visible, where could be heard the noise of the late
revellers. I glanced at the pope's house. The shutters and
doors were closed. Everything seemed quiet within.

I made my way to my own quarters and found Savelich
grieving about my absence. The news of my being set at
liberty filled him with unutterable joy.

" Thanks be to Thee, Almighty God! " said he, making
the sign of the cross. "At daybreak to-morrow we will
leave the fortress and go wherever God will direct us. I
have prepared something for you; eat it, my little father,
and then rest yourself till the morning, as if you were in the
bosom of Christ."

I followed his advice and, having eaten with a good appe-
tite, I fell asleep upon the bare floor, worn out both in body
and mind. — From T. Keane's The Prose Tales of Alexander
Poushkin.

FROM "EVGENI ONYEGIN"

TATY ANA'S I.KTTER TO ONY^GIN

I write to you ! Is more required ?
Can lower depths beyond remain ?
'T is in your power now, if desired,
To crush me with a just disdain.
But if my lot unfortunate
You in the least commiserate
You will not all abandon me.
At first I clung to secrecy :
Believe me, of my present shame
You never would have heard the name,
If the fond hope I could have fanned
At times, if only once a week,
To see you by our fireside stand,
To listen to the words you speak,
Address to you one single phrase
And then to meditate for days
Of one thing till again we met.
'T is said you are a misanthrope,

i32 The Nineteenth Century

In country solitude you mope,

And we — an unattractive set —

Can hearty welcome give alone.

Why did you visit our poor place ?

Forgotten in the village lone,

I never should have seen your face

And bitter torment never known.

The untutored spirit's pangs calmed down

By time (who can anticipate ?)

I had found my predestinate,

Become a faithful wife and e'en

A fond and careful mother been.

Another ! to none other I

My heart's allegiance can resign,

My doom has been pronounced on high,

'T is Heaven's will and I am thine.

The sum of my existence gone

But promise of our meeting gave,

I feel thou wast by God sent down

My guardian angel to the grave.

Thou didst to me in dreams appear,

Unseen thou wast already dear.

Thine eye subdued me with strange glance,

I heard thy voice's resonance

lyong ago. Dream it cannot be !

Scarce hadst thou entered thee I knew,

I flushed up, stupefied I grew,

And cried within myself: 't is he!

Is it not truth? in tones suppressed

With thee I conversed when I bore

Comfort and succour to the poor,

And when I prayer to Heaven addressed

To ease the anguish of my breast.

Nay! even as this instant fled,

Was it not thou, O vision bright,

That glimmered through the radiant night

And gently hovered o'er my head ?

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 133

Was it not thou who thus didst stoop
To whisper comfort, love, and hope ? —
Who art thou ? Guardian angel sent
Or torturer malevolent ?
Doubt and uncertainty decide:
All this may be an empty dream,
Delusions of a mind untried,
Providence otherwise may deem —
Then be it so ! My destiny
From henceforth I confide to thee !
Lo ! at thy feet my tears I pour
And thy protection I implore.
Imagine ! Here alone am I !
No one my anguish comprehends,
At times my reason almost bends,
And silently I here must die —
But I await thee : scarce alive,
My heart with but one look revive;
Or to disturb my dreams approach

I

Alas! with merited reproach.

'T is finished. Horrible to read!
With shame I shudder and with dread —
But boldly I myself resign :
Thine honour is my countersign !
— From Lieut. -Col. Spalding's Eugene Ontguine,
London, 1881.

FROM "THE BAKHCHISARAY FOUNTAIN"

Days passed away ; Maria slept
Peaceful, no cares disturbed her, now —

From earth the orphan maid was swept.
But who knew when, or where, or how ?

If prey to grief or pain she fell,

If slain or Heaven -struck, who can tell ?

She sleeps; her loss the chieftain grieves,

And his neglected harem leaves,

134 The Nineteenth Century

Flies from its tranquil precincts far,
And with his Tartars takes the field,

Fierce rushes mid the din of war,
And brave the foe that does not yield,

For mad despair hath nerved his arm,
Though in his heart is grief concealed,

With passion's hopeless transports warm.
His blade he swings aloft in air

And wildly brandishes, then low
It falls, whilst he with pallid stare

Gazes, and tears in torrents flow.

His harem by the chief deserted,

In foreign lands he warring roved,
Long nor in wish nor thought reverted

To scene once cherished and beloved.
His women, to the eunuch's rage
Abandoned, pined and sank in age.
The fair Grusinian now no more
Yielded her soul to passion's power,
Her fate was with Maria's blended,
On the same night their sorrows ended;

Seized by mute guards the hapless fair
Into a deep abyss they threw, —

If vast her crime, through love's despair,
Her punishment was dreadful too !

At length th' exhausted Khan returned,

Enough of waste his sword had dealt,
The Russian cot no longer burned,

Nor Caucasus his fury felt.
In token of Maria's loss

A marble fountain he upreared
In spot recluse: — the Christian's cross

Upon the monument appeared
(Surmounting it a crescent bright,
Emblem of ignorance and night!).

Aleksandr Sergy£evich Piishkin 135

Th' inscription mid the silent waste
Not yet has time's rude hand effaced,

Still do the gurgling waters pour
Their streams dispensing sadness round,

As mothers weep for sons no more,
In never-ending sorrows drowned.

In morn fair maids, (and twilight late,)
Roam where this monument appears,

And pitying poor Maria's fate
Entitle it the Fount of Tears !

—From W. D. Lewis's The Bakchesarian Fountain.

THE POISON-TREE

Remote and dire, in desert-lands
Where naught but sunburnt sod is seen,

Anchar, the Tree of Poison, stands—
A sentinel, with threatening mien.

The thirsty steppe-land gave it birth

In bitterness and anger dark;
It sucked foul venom from the earth,

Its roots and leaves are dead and stark.

At noon, when fiercest sunlight glows,

The poison from its veins escapes,
And trickling down the stem it flows

By evening into globed shapes.

No bird will seek this Tree of Death,

Nor dare the tiger prowl anigh,
The hungry whirlwind's dusty breath

Grows baneful as it hastens by.

If e'er a wand'ring cloud distil

Soft rains upon its blighted top,
Their harmless nature turns to ill,

And changed, in deadly dews they drop.

136 The Nineteenth Century

But yet a man's imperial nod

Sent forth a fellow-man afar,
Whose meek, obedient footsteps trod,

Right to the base of foul Anchdr.

By morning he returned, and bore

The fatal resin, with a bough
Of withered leaves, and like it wore

A wasted look — and from his brow

Cold sweat was streaming, and he tried
To stand, but fell to earth prostrate.

And there, poor slave ! he sank and died
In presence of the Potentate,

Who sopped his arrows in the bane,

And sent them dark — a doom new-found ! —
By messenger o'er hill and plain

To neighbours in the countries round.
— Transl. by Charlotte Sidgwick, in Free Russia, January,
1899 (vol« x-> No- 0-

THE BIRD

Naught of labour, naught of sorrow,

On God's little bird doth rest,
And it questions not the morrow,

Builds itself no lasting nest.

On the bough it sleeps and swings

Till the ruddy sun appears,
Then it shakes its wings and sings,

When the voice of God it hears.

After Spring's delightful weather,
When the burning Summer 's fled,

And the Autumn brings together
For men's sorrow, for men's dread,

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Ptishkin 137

Mists and storms in gloomy legions;

Then the bird across the main
Flies to far-off, southern regions,
Till the Spring returns again.
-Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication unascertainable).

THE PROPHET

By spiritual thirst opprest,
I hied me to the desert dim,
When lo ! upon my path appeared
The holy six-winged seraphim.
My brow his ringers lightly pressed,
Soothing my eyelids into rest:
Open my inward vision flies,
As ope a startled eaglet's eyes.
He touched my ears, and they were filled
With sounds that all my being thrilled.
I felt a trembling fill the skies,
I heard the sweep of angels' wings,
Beneath the sea saw creeping things,
And in the valleys vines arise.
Over my lips a while he hung,
And tore from me my sinful tongue —
The babbling tongue of vanity.
The sting of serpent's subtlety
Within my lips, as chilled I stood,
He placed, with right hand red with blood.
Then with a sword my bosom cut,
And forth my quivering heart he drew;
A glowing coal of fire he put
Within my breast laid bare to view.
As corpse-like on the waste I lay,
Thus unto me God's voice did say —
" Prophet, arise! Confess My Name;
Fulfil my will ; submit to Me !
Arise! Go forth o'er land and sea,
And with high words men's hearts inflame! "
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

138 ' The Nineteenth Century

THE TALISMAN

Where fierce the surge with awful bellow

Doth ever lash the rocky wall,
And where the moon most brightly mellow

Doth beam when mists of evening fall ;
Where midst his harem's countless blisses

The Moslem spends his vital span,
A sorceress there with gentle kisses

Presented me a Talisman.

And said: " Until thy latest minute

Preserve, preserve my Talisman;
A secret power it holds within it, —

'T was love, true love the gift did plan.
From pest on land or death on ocean

When hurricanes its surface fan,
O object of my fond devotion!

Thou scap'st not by my Talisman.

1 ' The gem in eastern mine which slumbers,

Or ruddy gold 't will not bestow;
'T will not subdue the turbanned numbers

Before the Prophet's shrine which bow;
Nor high through air on friendly pinions

Can bear thee swift to home or clan,
From mournful climes or strange dominions,

From South to North, — my Talisman.

' ' But oh ! when crafty eyes thy reason

With sorceries sudden seek to move,
And when in night's mysterious season

Lips cling to thine, — but not in love, —
From proving then, dear youth, a booty

To those who falsely would trepan,
From new heart wounds, and lapse from duty,

Protect thee shall my Talisman."

— From The Talisman^ and Other Pieces, by George Borrow,
St. Petersburg, 1835.

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 139

THE LAY OF THE WISE OLEG

Wise Ole*g to the war he hath bound him again,

The Khozars have awakened his ire ;
For rapine and raid, hamlet, city, and plain

Are devoted to falchion and fire.
In mail of Byzance, girt with many a good spear,
The Prince pricks along on his faithful destrere.

From the darksome fir-forest, to meet that array,

Forth paces a grey-haired magician:
To none but Perun did that sorcerer pray,

Fulfilling the prophet's dread mission:
His life he had wasted in penance and pain : —
And beside that enchanter Oleg drew his rein.

"Now rede me, enchanter, beloved of Perun,

The good and the ill that 's before me;
Shall I soon give my neighbour-foes triumph, and soon

Shall the earth of the grave be piled o'er me ?
Unfold all the truth; fear me not; and for meed,
Choose among them, — I give thee my best battle-steed."

" O enchanters, they care not for prince or for peer,

And gifts are but needlessly given ;
The wise tongue ne'er stumbleth for falsehood or fear,

'T is the friend of the councils of Heaven!
The years of the future are clouded and dark,
Yet on thy fair forehead thy fate I can mark:

" Remember now firmly the words of my tongue;

For the chief finds a rapture in glory:
On the gate of Byzantium thy buckler is hung,

Thy name shall be deathless in story ;
Wild waves and broad kingdoms thy sceptre obey,
And the foe sees with envy so boundless a sway :

The Nineteenth Century

"And the blue sea, uplifting its treacherous wave,

In its wrath, — in the hurricane-hour, —
And the knife of the coward, the sword of the brave,

To slay thee shall never have power:
Within thy strong harness no wound shalt thou know,
For a guardian unseen shall defend thee below.

' ' Thy steed fears not labour, nor danger, nor pain,

His lord's lightest accent he heareth,
Now still, though the arrows fall round him like rain,

Now o'er the red field he careereth;
He fears not the winter, he fears not to bleed, —
Yet thy death- wound shall come from thy good battle-steed ! ' '

Oleg smiled a moment, but yet on his brow,
And lip, thought and sorrow were blended:

In silence he bent on his saddle, and slow
The Prince from his courser descended ;

And as though from a friend he were parting with pain,

He strokes his broad neck and his dark flowing mane.

" Farewell then, my comrade, fleet, faithful, and bold!

We must part, — such is Destiny's power:
Now rest thee, — I swear, in thy stirrup of gold

No foot shall e'er rest, from this hour.
Farewell! we 've been comrades for many a long year, —
My squires, now I pray ye, come take my destrere.

" The softest of carpets his horse-cloth shall be:

And lead him away to the meadow;
On the choicest of corn he shall feed daintilie,

He shall drink of the well in the shadow. ' '
Then straightway departed the squires with the steed,
And to valiant Oleg a fresh courser they lead.

Ol£g and his comrades are feasting, I trow;

The mead-cups are merrily clashing :
Their locks are as white as the dawn-lighted snow

On the peak of the mountain-top flashing:

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Ptishkin 141

They talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
And the fights where together they struck side by side.

1 ' But where, ' ' quoth Oleg, ' ' is my good battle-horse ?

My mettlesome charger, — how fares he ?
Is he playful as ever, as fleet in the course ;

His age and his freedom how bears he ? "
They answer and say : on the hill by the stream
He has long slept the slumber that knows not a dream.

Oleg then grew thoughtful, and bent down his brow:

" O man, what can magic avail thee!
A false lying dotard, Enchanter, art thou:

Our rage and contempt shall assail thee.
My horse might have borne me till now, but for thee! "
Then the bones of his charger Oleg went to see.

Oleg he rode forth with his spearmen beside;

At his bridle Prince Igor he hurried :
And they see on a hillock by Dnieper's swift tide

Where the steed's noble bones He unburied:
They are washed by the rain, the dust o'er them is cast,
And above them the feather-grass waves in the blast.

Then the Prince set his foot on the courser's white skull,
Saying : * ' Sleep, my old friend, in thy glory !

Thy lord hath outlived thee, his days are nigh full:
At his funeral feast, red and gory,

'T is not thou 'neath the axe that shall redden the sod,

That my dust may be pleasured to quaff thy brave blood.

"And am I to find my destruction in this ?

My death in a skeleton seeking ? ' '
From the skull of the courser a snake, with a hiss,

Crept forth as the hero was speaking :
Round his legs, like a ribbon, it twined its black ring;
And the Prince shrieked aloud as he felt the keen sting.

i42 The Nineteenth Century

The mead-cups are foaming, they circle around, —
At Oleg's mighty Death-Feast they 're ringing;
Prince Igor and Olga they sit on the mound ;

The war-men the death-song are singing:
And they talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
And the fights where together they struck side by side.

— From T. B. Shaw's Pushkin, the Russian Poet, in
Blackwood's Magazine, 1845.

TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA

Why rave ye, babblers, so — ye lords of popular wonder ?
Why such anathemas 'gainst Russia do you thunder ?
What moves your idle rage ? Is 't Poland's fallen pride ?
'T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
A question which, be sure, ye never can decide.

For ages past still have contended

These races, though so near allied :

And oft 'neath Victory's storm has bended

Now Poland's, and now Russia's side.

Which shall stand fast in such commotion,

The haughty Pole, or faithful Russ ?
And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean —

Or that dry up ? This is point for us.

Peace, peace ! your eyes are all unable
To read our history's bloody table;
Strange in your sight and dark must be
Our springs of household enmity !
To you the Kreml and Prdga's tower
Are voiceless all, — you mark the fate
And daring of the battle-hour, —
And understand us not, but hate

What stirs ye ? Is it that this nation
On Moscow's flaming wall, blood-slaked and ruin-quenched,
Spurned back the insolent dictation
Of Him before whose nod ye blenched ?

Aleksandr Sergy£evich Ptishkin 143

Is it that into dust we shattered
The Dagon that weighed down the earth so wearily ?
And our best blood so freely scattered
To buy for Europe peace and liberty ?

Ye 're bold of tongue — but hard, would ye in deed but try it.
Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
Too weak to fix once more Izmail's red bayonet ?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever in vain commanded ?

Or must we meet all Europe banded ?

Have we forgot to conquer yet ?

Or rather, shall they not, from Perm to Tauris' fountains,
From the hot Colchian steppes to Finland's icy mountains,

From the grey KremPs half-shattered wall,

To far Kathay, in dotage buried, —

A steely rampart close and serried,

Rise, Russia's warriors, one and all?

Then send your numbers without number,

Your maddened sons, your goaded slaves,

In Russia's plains there 's room to slumber,

And well they '11 know their brethren's graves!
— From T. B. Shaw's/fcjA&», the Russian Poet, in
Blackwood's Magazine, 1845.

FROM "BORIS GODUNOV"

Night : A cell in the Chlidov monastery
FATHER PIMKN, GRIGORI (sleeping).

Pimen (writing before a lamp). Once more, one final anec-
dote, and then
My manuscript will be complete, the task
On me, a sinner, laid by God, fulfilled.
'T is not for naught that during all these years
The Lord hath made me witness many things,
And taught me all the art of writing books.
When in the future some industrious monk
Shall find my hard-accomplished, nameless work,

144 The Nineteenth Century

He will, like me, illume his little lamp,

And, brushing off the dust of centuries,

Will copy down my truthful chronicle.

Then will the children of believers true

Read all the story of their native land,

Recall the labours of their mighty Tsars,

Performed for them, for glory and for right,

And humbly offer prayers that God will blot

The crimes, though dark, of him who wrought for them.

Thus, bent for many years I live anew.

The past before me rose its hurrying flood.

Is 't long ago that like the angry sea

Time's fateful surges broke in great events?

And now it rests in motionless repose !

Not many men my memory preserves,

Not many words are in my mind engrossed,

And all the rest for ever now are gone.

But day is nigh, my little lamp burns dim,

One more, one final story of the past ! ( Writes.)

Grigdri (wakes). That dream again ? How strange! That

cursed dream !

Thrice have I dreamed it ! But the aged man
Still sits before his little lamp and writes.
He hath not closed his eyes the livelong night
In slumber : how I love his peaceful mien,
As, deeply buried in the past, his soul
Broods o'er the secret of his manuscript.
How gladly would I scan his precious line.
What writeth he: the Tatars' bloody reign, —
The cruel deeds of John the Terrible ?
The stormy council of old N6vgorod ?
The glories of the fatherland ? In vain !
Nor in his glance nor in his lofty brow
Can one discern the secrets of his mind :
His mien is calm and full of majesty,
As well becomes an aged priest who looks
With cloudless eye on good and evil men
Impartially, detecting right and wrong

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 145

Or hatred or compassion knowing not.

Pimen. Art thou awake ?

Grigori. Thy blessing, honoured sire.

Pimen. The L,ord His blessing grant thee, oh, my son,
To-day, hereafter, and for evermore !

Grigori. L,ong has thy pen been busy, nor has sleep
Once brought thee sweet oblivion this night;
But some strange, diabolic vision hath disturbed
My rest : my enemy hath tormented me.
I dreamed that up the winding narrow stairs
I Counted to the windy tower alone;
Before me from the top all Moscow lay
Diminished like an ant-hill. Far below
The people swarmed and babbled in the square
And jeered at me with senseless ridicule.
Shame mastered me and terror overwhelmed,
And, falling headlong on my face, I waked.
'T is thrice that I have dreamed the selfsame dream.
Is 't not a marvel ?

Pimen. 'T is thy youthful blood

Makes sport of thee: by prayer and strenuous fast
Thy dreams will be with peaceful visions filled.
'T is e'en not otherwise with me when I,
Dazed with involuntary drowsiness,
E'er fail my soul with earnest prayer to guard —
My aged dreams are then disturbed with sin :
While scenes of banqueting torment me oft,
Now warlike camps or surging battles rude,
Now senseless dissipations of wild youth.

Grigori. How gaily must have passed thy youthful days!
Thou wast in battle 'neath Kazan's high walls;
Hast shared the wars in Lithuania's plains;
Hast seen the wanton court of John the Great.
How fortunate ! But I from earliest years
Have been immured in cells a needy monk !
Why should not I have had delight in war
And feasted at the table of the Tsar ?
Then, when I reached like thee the term of life,

VOL. II.— 10.

The Nineteenth Century

I might have turned me gladly from the world
And all its vanities, and shut myself
Within the calm retirement of a cell
To meditate upon my holy vows.

Pimen. Lament not, brother, that thou hast so soon
The world abandoned, that a loving God
Hath little of temptation sent to thee.
Take thou my word, a fascination strong
Is exercised upon us from afar,
By glory, luxury, and woman's wiles.
Long have I lived and much have I enjoyed ;
But only true enjoyment have I known
Since to the cloister God hath led my steps.
Recall the mightiest Tsars that have ever lived.
Who stands above them ? God alone ! And who
Would venture to oppose them ? None ! What then ?
On them so sorely weighs the golden crown
They would exchange it gladly for the cowl.
E'en John the Tsar sought comfort and relief
Within the semblance of monastic rule.
His court, where swarmed his haughty favourites,
The novel aspect of a cloister took ;
His body-guard, in sackcloth and in stole,
Appeared like docile monks, the while the Tsar,
Himself, the cruel Tsar, an abbot mild.
Myself have seen, here in this very cell —
('T was then the abode of that most just of men,
Kirill, who suffered much, and even then
I also had been led by God to see
The folly of the world) — myself have seen,
Here in this very cell, the mighty Tsar,
Grown weary of his mad designs and wrath,
Repenting, sit amongst us, meek and mild.
We stood before him silent, motionless,
And quietly he would converse with us,
Would hold the abbot and the brotherhood:
1 ' Ye fathers, soon the wished-f or hour will come,
When I '11 appear with hunger to be saved;

Aleksandr Sergyeevich Piishkin 147

Thou Nikodim, thou Sergi, thou Kirill,

And all of ye, accept my heartfelt vow !

I '11 come to you a sinner in despair;

I '11 take upon myself the monk's harsh garb,

I '11 fall, O holy father, at thy feet! "

Thus spoke the mighty ruler of the realm ;

And gentle words flowed from his cruel lips,

And tears bedewed his cheeks; and we in tears

Would pray our Lord his sinful, suffering soul

To fill with everlasting love and peace.

But his son Feodor ? Upon the throne

Vowed to perpetual silence, like a monk ;

He sighed to lead a life of easy peace.

He straightway changed the royal palace-halls

To cloistered cells, the heavy cares of state

Did not at all disturb his saintly soul.

God mercifully gave the Tsar his peace;

And while he lived, our Russia, undisturbed

In taintless glory, owned his gentle sway.

But when he died, a miracle was wrought,

Unheard of: at his couch appeared a man

With face of flame, seen by the Tsar alone.

Feodor talked with him, and called him " Sire,"—

" Great Patriarch." All around were filled with fear

To see the heavenly apparition there,

Because the holy father was not then

Within the chamber where the Tsar was laid.

When he appeared sweet fragrance filled the halls,

And like the sun his holy visage shone.

— From Shakespeare and the Russian Drama, by
N. H. Dole, in Poet-lore, vol. i., No. n.

DEMONS

Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,
Scarce the hidden moon's pale light

On the drifting snow is lying, —
Wild the heavens, wild the night.

148 The Nineteenth Century

Swiftly o'er the stormswept lowland —

Jingle, jingle bells amain!
Swiftly still, though heavy-hearted,

Drive I o'er the frozen main.

" Ho there! driver, onward! " " Faster,

Good my lord, we may not go,
For the stormwind blinds me, master,

And the road is choked with snow. ' '
Useless all ! the track is hidden ;

We are lost to help and home ;
From afar the demon spies us —

Closer circling see him come!

Ha! beside us he 's careering,

Hissing, spitting, — now, I ween,
Round the steeds so madly veering

On the brink of yon ravine.
There — if near or far I know not —

He was whirling in my sight.
There again he pined and dwindled,

Vanished into empty night!

Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,

Scarce the hidden moon's pale light
On the drifting snow is lying, —

Wild the heavens, wild the night.
Courage fails to struggle longer,

Suddenly the sleigh bells cease —
Pause the team — Declare thou yonder —

Wolf or tree-stem — is it peace ?

Hark, the wind is wailing sadly,

Loudly snort the startled team.
There, see there he gambols madly,

Through the murk his eyeballs gleam.
Once again the team has started —

Jingle, jingle bells amain !
Lo, the spirit-hosts assemble

O'er the faintly gleaming plain!

Evgeni Abramovich Baratynski 149

Form they have not, have no number,

Lightly whirling round, they seem
Like the dead leaves of November

In the moon's uncertain beam.
Are they endless ? whither fly they ?

Why this wailful chanting, say !
Mourn they now their dead ? In marriage

Give they, else, some witch away?

Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,

Scarce the hidden moon's pale light
On the drifting snow is lying, —

Wild the heavens, wild the night.
Still they come and still they vanish

In the darkness o'er the plain,
Still their moaning and imploring

Rends my very heart in twain !

— Transl. by Miss H. Frank, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 34.

Evgeni Abramovich Baratynski. (1800-1844.)

Baratynski was the most talented of all the contemporary poets of
Pushkin. He came of a distinguished family in the Government of
Tamb6v. At fifteen years he entered the Corps of Pages, but was soon
expelled for some misdemeanour. This compelled his enlisting as a
common soldier in St. Petersburg, where he came at once in contact
with the leading poets of the day, and he began himself writing verses.
The following six years he passed in Finland, the austere nature of
which much impressed his mind and gave him ample material for his
melancholy Muse. After rising to the rank of a commissioned officer,
he retired and settled in Moscow. In 1843 he went abroad, and the
next year he suddenly died in Naples. His best production, The
Gipsy Girl, was at one time preferred to Pushkin's poems, but he is
now chiefly remembered as the earliest and most brilliant of Russian
pessimistic poets.

In C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, London, 1887, is given Faith Re-
warded; the same, under the title The Madonna, translated by F. P.
Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 28.

iso The Nineteenth Century

FINLAND

Into your clefts you have received the poet, granite rocks
of Finland, eternal granites, guardian heroes of the land of
the glacial crown. With the lyre he is among you. His
greeting is a greeting to the masses of the rock, contempor-
raneous with the world. lyike them may he for ever be un-
changeable!

How wondrously everything about me charms my eye:
there with its immeasurable waters the sea is welded with
the heavens; here the dreamy pine-forest has descended with
heavy tread from the mountain rock, and mirrors itself in
the smooth waters! 'T is late: day is out, but the vault of
heaven is bright; night comes without darkness upon the
Finnish cliffs, and only for its own adornment it leads out
upon the horizon a useless choir of diamond stars. This is
the country of Odin's children, — the distant nations of the
storm ! This is the cradle of their restless days, consecrated
to famous warrings !

Silent is the sounding shield, not heard the voice of the
skald; the flaming oak is, extinguished; the stormy wind
has scattered the solemn calls, the sons know not the ex-
ploits of their fathers, and prone in the dust lie the prostrate
forms of their gods, — and all around me is deep silence. O
ye who carried war from shore to shore, where are ye, heroes
of the north ? Your vestige has disappeared from your
native land. Do ye press your grieving eyes against the
cliffs and swim, a misty host, up in the clouds ? Do ye ?
Give me answer, listen to my voice calling to you in the
silence of the night. Mighty sons of these threatening,
eternal cliffs ! How were ye severed from your rocky father-
land? Why are ye sad? Why have I read upon your
melancholy faces the smile of chiding ? And ye have hid
yourselves in the abode of shades ! And time has not spared
your names ! What are our exploits, what the glory of our
days, what is our windy tribe ? Oh, everything will in its
turn disappear in the abyss of years ! For all there is one
law, — the law of annihilation. In all I hear the mysterious
greeting of sought-for forgetfulness.

Evgeni Abramovich Baratynski 151

But I, — for life's sake loving life in ingloriousness, — shall
I with careless soul tremble before destiny ? Though not
eternal in £ ime, I am eternal for myself : does not the storm
of time speak to imagination alone ? The moment belongs
to me, as I belong to the moment. What care I for past or
future races? Not for them do I strum the soft- voiced
strings: though not listened to, I am sufficiently rewarded
with sounds for sounds, and with dreams for dreams.

SPRING

Spring, O spring ! How pure the air, how clear the vault
of heaven ! With its bright azure it blinds my eyes.

Spring, O spring ! How, upon the pinions of the wind,
caressing the sunbeams, the clouds flit upon high !

The rivulets babble, the rivulets sparkle; roaring the river
carries on its triumphant back the uplifted ice.

The trees are still bare, but in the grove the old leaves,
as before, rustle under foot and emit fragrance.

Rising to the very sun and invisible in the clear height,
the lark sings the song of welcome to the spring.

What has happened to my soul ? With the brook it is a
brook, and with the bird a bird : with one it babbles, with
the other flies into heaven.

Why do sun and spring give it such joy ? Does it, as a
daughter of the elements, make merry at their banquet ?

Well, happy is he who there drinks oblivion from thought,
who there is carried far away from it !

TRUTH

Yearning since childhood for happiness, I have ever been
poor in happiness! Or shall I never attain it in the wilder-
ness of existence ?

My young dreams have flitted from the heart,— I do not
recognise the world: I am deprived of my former aim of
hopes, but have no new aim.

' ' Senseless are you and all your wishes ! ' ' spoke to me a
secret voice, and I cast off for ever the best creations of my
dreams.

152 The Nineteenth Century

But wherefore has the disappointment of the soul not been
complete ? Why lives within me the blind pity of my youth-
ful dreams ?

Thus I once murmured, meditating about my heavy lot:
suddenly I saw — it was no dream — Truth before me.

" My light will show the path to happiness! " said she.
" Let me but wish, — and I will teach you, impassioned one,
joyful dispassionateness:

* * Though through me you may lose the heat of your heart ;
though, learning to know people, you, perchance, frightened,
may cease to love your neighbours and your friends.

' * I shall destroy all the charms of existence, but shall put
your mind aright; I shall pour an austere cold over your
soul, but shall give it calm. ' '

I trembled, as I listened to her words, and grievously I
replied to her: " O unearthly guest, sad is your visitation!

' ' Your light is the funereal light of all earthly joys ! Your
peace, alas! is the melancholy peace of the grave, and it is
terrible to the living !

" No, I am not yours: in your severe science I shall not
find happiness ! Leave me : I will somehow manage to wan-
der upon my path.

"Good-bye! or no: when my luminary in the starry
height will begin to grow dim, and when the time will
come to forget all that to my heart is dear, —

"Appear then! Open then my eyes, enlighten my mind,
that, despising life, I may without murmuring descend into
the abode of night!"

Nikotey Mikh£ylovich Yazykov. (1803-1846.)

Yazykov was born in Simbirsk, where he remained to his twelfth
year. In 1820 he entered the School of Mines at St. Petersburg, but
before graduating went to the university at Dorpat, from which he
also failed to get a diploma. He passed his student days in riotous
bouts that completely undermined his health. His anacreontic poems
early attracted the attention of Zhuk6vski and Pushkin, and the latter
became a warm friend of his. He then settled in Moscow, where he
served in one of the governmental offices, and wrote a series of poems,
among which To the Poet, The Conflagration , and A Spring Night

Nikolay Mikhaylovich Yazykov 153

are his best. Ill health soon drove him abroad, and there he com-
posed his famous To the Rhine ; his other poems of the same period
have a religious and patriotic tinge. Yazykov's poetry has been the
subject of much controversy : some deny the intrinsic value of his
productions, though all unite in extolling the exquisite musicalness
and harmony of his verse.

N. H. Dole has translated his The Sailor (publication unascertain-
able). In C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, London, 1887, are given
The Earthquake \ Evening, Prayer.

THE SAILOR

Cruel is our lonely ocean,

Roaring always day and night;
Buried 'neath its wild commotion

Many a wreck lies, far from sight.

Courage, comrades! I, confiding,
To the free winds give my barque;

Forth it hastens, swiftly riding
O'er the billows grim and dark.

Thick the clouds fly o'er the heaven,
Fierce the gale grows, — black the waves;

Hither, thither we are driven,
While the waking whirlwind raves.

Courage, comrades ! Peals the thunder,

High the watery heaps arise,
Yawning gulfs now draw us under,

Now we 're lifted to the skies.

Yet behold, our ship is nearing
Through the storm the wished-for land ;

See, the vaults of heaven are clearing,
See, the port is near at hand.

Thither but brave hearts and ready

Will the billows speed along !
Courage, comrades! straight and steady

Flies our vessel, stanch and strong.
— Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).

154 The Nineteenth Century

THE STORM

Lo! behind the distant mountains is concealed the beauti-
ful day; under the protection of the woods above the waters
the tremulous shade grows ever longer in wavelike rows.
In the river gleams the evening star, — hills, vales, and shores
are deserted : long processions of carts, having left the fields,
drive into the village. Now and then a watchdog barks, or
the breeze makes the leaves rustle in the darkling oak-forest,
or a bird flies timidly by, or a heavy, creaking waggon, drawn
by a tired horse, and counting off each plank with its wheels,
crosses the lightly poised bridge. And suddenly a broken,
dull rattling is borne over the river, already silent and
dreamy, — and all is quiet again.

But in the distance, at the edge of the heavens, large,
cloudy waves have on all sides veiled the full moon: now
they part, now they come together again; now the silent
clouds threateningly merge into one mass that, lightning-
bearing and black, steals from the east upon the azure vault.
Already is the speechlessness of the woods disturbed by the
encroachment of the wind ; no longer is the nightly flowing
of the river peaceful and dark. In broad ripples flash upon
it the far-stretched groves of shadows, — just as a sail, trem-
bling in the air and almost furled by the sailor, when suddenly
a storm arises, and rolling the noisy floods, seizes the pinion
of his barque and stretches it above the whirling waters.

Darkness has drowned the heavens; rain pours down;
the storm agitates and stirs the waters and the woods. — it
lightens, thunders, and raves. Wondrous moments! When
from end to end, through the stormy clouds a furrow of
toothed lightning gleams in purple fire, — then everything
is seen: the chain of the distant mountains and the varie-
gated pictures of the windings of the Sor6t, the lakes, the
villages, the banks, and the vales. Suddenly the darkness
grows more grim and murky, the thunder claps are louder;
noisier, thicker, faster are the torrents of the rain. But to-
morrow the luminary of the day will, in luxurious silence,
appear in the light-blue heaven, and will re-establish a
golden morning in the storm-washed country.

Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov 155

TO THE POET

When inspiration has grown one with you, and your
breast heaves mightily with it, and you perceive your con-
secration and know your God-blest path, when all, by which
the heavenly gift is patent upon earth, is ready for your
deeds, — the light and heat of mighty thought and the fire-
breathing word, — then go into the world, that it may hear
the prophet! But in the world be holy and majestic, kiss
not the sugared lips of vice, beg not, take no reward, —
whether the morning star invite you with its glow, or terrible
be the tyranny of fate: be innocent as the dove, and bold
and brave as the eagle !

And harmonious and soothing sounds will rise from your
thundering strings; in these sounds the slave will forget his
torments, and King Saul will listen to them, and you will
bloom in life of high solemnity, and for ever bright will be
your open brow and piercing, flaming eye!

But if you are filled with the earthly desire of praise and
pleasure, — gather not rich gifts upon the altar of your God:
He will ungraciously look upon >TOU, will not accept your
cunning offerings; smoke and thunder will disperse them,
— and the priest will recede, trembling with fear and shame.

Mikhail Ytirevich Lermontov. (1814-1841.)

Lermontov was born in the house of his grandmother, who brought
him up after the early death of his mother. Up to his tenth year he
was educated at home, in the country, studying several modern lan-
guages and Greek. In 1826 he was taken to Moscow and placed in
the Boarding School for Young Noblemen, which was connected with
the university. He here distinguished himself as a student, but was
much ridiculed by his mates on account of his awkward manner and
unattractive exterior. This led him to withdraw from their company
as much as possible, and to frequent solitary spots. He read a great
deal, but his favourite author was Byron, whose life he set up as an
example for himself to follow. Having been expelled from the uni-
versity for some scandalous pranks, he entered in 1832 the School of
the Guard Cadets at St Petersburg, where he soon gained the reput-
ation of a clever poet of immodest verses. After graduation he
passed his life in a whirl of society pleasures at St. Petersburg and at

156 The Nineteenth Century

Tsdrskoe Sel6. Pushkin's death, in 1837, roused Le*rmontov from his
inactivity. The poem, On the Death of the Poet, which he then wrote,
and which was spread over Russia in a large number of manuscript
copies, caused a sensation in higher society, and he was banished for
it to the Caucasus, but was soon returned to the army. L£rmontov
was at that time little known to the public at large, though his poem
" Borodin6 " had just appeared, as he kept himself aloof from the
literary coteries. He first attracted universal attention by his Ballad
of the Tsar Ivan Vasilevich, after which followed a long series of his
famous poems, and the prose novel The Hero of our Time. In 1840
he was again banished to the Caucasus for hfving fought a duel, but
the next year he was killed in another duel with a fellow-officer.

Le*rmontov had displayed unusual talent before the age of twenty,
and before his twenty-eighth year he had achieved a reputation that
is hardly second to Pushkin's. His fervid imagination led him to add
to his fashionable Byronian mood a charm entirely his own : his
melancholy and pessimism, which find their most beautiful expression
in his long poem, The Demon, do not leave the reader disheartened
and disappointed, but rather invite to pensive meditation. His poetry
gives the impression of having no relation to active life ; it seems as
though the questions of the day did not exist for him. This is partly
due to the fact that he stood aside from the literary circles, but more
especially because he wrote at a time when the application of art to
life had not yet become the watchword of Russian poets. He there-
fore characterises the transition period from Pushkin to G6gol. He
was entirely under the influence of Byron, without, however, inherit-
ing his political and humanitarian ideals.

There are several translations of his prose tale : Sketches of Russian
Life in the Caucasus, by a Russe (a literary forgery), London, 1853 *»
A Hero of Our Times, now first translated into English, London,
1854 ; The Hero of Our Days, from the Russian, by T. Pulszky (in
The Parlour Library), London, [1854] ; A Hero of Our Time, from
the Russian, by R. I. Lipmann, London, [1886] ; Russian Reader :
Lermontoff's Modern Hero, with English translation and biograph-
ical sketch, by Ivan Nestor-Schnurmann, Cambridge University Press,
1899. Tainan (part of Hero of Our Time) was also given in Railway
and General Automatic Library, London, [1892]. The Demon has
been translated twice : The Demon, translated from the Russian, by
A. Condie Stephen, London, 1875, 2nd ed., 1881, 3rd ed., 1886 ; The
Demon of Lermontoff, translated from the Russian, by Francis Storr,
London, 1894. The Mlsyri has appeared under the name, The Cir-
cassian Boy, translated through the German, by S. S. Conant, Boston,
1875-

The following separate poems have been translated into English :

Mikhail Yiirevich Lermontov 157

The Gifts of Terek, by T. B. Shaw, in Edinburgh Blackwood Maga-
zine, vol. liv. ; Rememberest thou the day, by W. R. Alger, in The
Poetry of the Orient, Boston, 1865 ; Gifts of the Terek, The Cup of
Life, Cossack Cradlesong, The Prisoner, by A. E. Staley, in Black-
wood's Magazine, vol. cxxxvi. ; God's Presence in Nature, Clouds,
The Cup of Life, The Bark, The Dispute, Circassian Song, Cossack
Cradlesong, The Prisoner, The Deserter, The Dream, Stanzas, The
Nun's Song, Prayer, The Branch from Palestine, by C. T. Wilson, in
Russian Lyrics, London, 1887 ; The Angel, The Voyage, Prayer,
Thanksgiving, On Death of Pushkin, Dream, Clouds, How Weary,
Alone I pass along the lonely road, Men and Waves, The Queen of

the Sea, The Prophet, When my native land, To , The Dagger,

Not for Thee, Dispute, " Why ? " Moscow, in J. Pollen's Rhymes from
the Russian, London, 1891 ; in Free Russia have appeared : by G. R.
Tomson, The Poet, in vol. i., No. 6; by Mary Grace Walker, The
Death of Pushkin, in vol. x., Nos. 6 and 7, My Neighbour, in vol.
xi., No. i, My Country, ib., No. 4; by Mrs. Ch. Sidgwick, At a Ball,
ib., No. 2; in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society have been pub-
lished: by F. P. Marchant, The Angel, The Prayer, in No. n, The
Branch from Palestine, and Gratitude, in No. 16, Cossack Cradlesong,
in No. 25, Ballad of the Tsar Ivan Vasilevich, in No. 26 ; by Miss
G. Shepherd, Oh, he was born for happiness, for hope, in No. 13 ; by
A. C. Coolidge, Alone I wander out along the road and The Angel,
in No. 14 (given before in Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895) ; by Mrs.
Heath, The Sail, in No. 19; by J. Pollen, The Gifts of the Terek, in
No. 20; by Anna Laura K. Bezant, On life's road I wander, lone and
dreaming, in No. 21; in the Library of the World's Best Literature is
given The Cloud, by N. H. Dole, and are reprinted The Prisoner and
The Cup of Life, by Staley, and The Angel, by Pollen.

FROM "A HERO OF OUR TIMES"

MAKSIM MAKSIMYCH

Leaving Maksfm Maksfcnych, I rode at a rapid gait
through the Terek and Daryal canons, breakfasted in Kaz-
bek, drank tea at Lara, and hastened away for supper to
Vladikavkdz.

I stopped at the inn where all passengers stop 1 was

told that I should have to pass three days longer here, since
the chance-team had not yet returned from Ekaterinogrdd
and, consequently, could not start on its return journey.

158 The Nineteenth Century

The first day I passed lonely. Early in the morning of
the next day a vehicle drove into the yard. "Ah, Maksim
Maksimych ! ' ' We met like old friends. I offered him my
room ; he accepted it without ceremony, even clapped me on
my shoulder and curved his mouth in the manner of a smile.
What a queer fellow!

Maksim Maksimych was well versed in the culinary art:
he could broil a pheasant remarkably well, superbly seasoned
it with cucumber sauce, and I must confess that without him
I should have been obliged to live on dry food. A bottle of
Kakhetine wine helped us to forget the modest number of
our dishes, of which there was but one, and lighting our
pipes we seated ourselves, — I at the window, he at the stove,
for it was a damp and cold day. We were silent.

We sat for a long time. A few vehicles with dirty Armen-
ians drove into the yard of the inn, and behind them — an
empty carriage.

' ' Thank the Lord ! ' ' said Maksim Maksimych, approach-
ing the window. ' * What a fine carriage ! " he added

" Who can it be ? Let us go and find out."

We went into the corridor. A lackey was dragging, with
the help of the driver, some portmanteaus into a room.

" Listen, friend," the staff -captain asked him, " to whom
does this magnificent carriage belong ? Eh ? A fine car-
riage!"

The lackey did not turn around, but muttered something
as he opened the portmanteau. Maksim Maksimych grew
angry. He touched the rude fellow on the shoulder and
said to him: " I 'm talking to you, my dear fellow."

" To whom the carriage belongs ? To my master ? "

* ' And who is your master ? ' '

" Pech6rin."

"You don't say? Pechorin? Oh, good God! Did n't
he serve in the Caucasus ? ' ' exclaimed Maksim Maksimych,
pulling me by the sleeve. Joy glistened in his eyes.

" I think he did, but I have not been long with him."

11 Well, that 's it ! Grig6ri Aleksdndrovich ? That 's his
name? Your master and I have been friends," he added,

Mikhail Yiirevich Lermontov 159'

giving the lackey a friendly slap on the shoulder that
made him stagger.

' ' Excuse me, sir, you are in my way, ' ' he said, knitting
his brow.

' ' How funny 37ou are, friend ! You must know that your
master and I have been bosom friends and have lived to-
gether. But what has become of him ? ' '

The servant announced that Pechorin would remain for
supper and the night at Colonel N.'s.

"Won't he come here in the evening?" said Maksim
Maksimych. " Or, are n't you going down to see him for
something or other? If you are, tell him that Maksim
Maksimych is here, — he knows,— I '11 give you eight griven-
niks1 for vodka." 2

The lackey made a scornful grimace when he heard of
such a modest promise, but he assured Maksim Maksimych
that he would carry out his order.

11 He '11 come right away! " Maksim Maksimych said to
me, with a radiant look. " I '11 wait for him outside the
gate. Oh, what a pity I don't know Colonel N."

Maksim Maksimych sat down on a bench in front of the
gate, and I went to my room.

An hour later an invalid brought a boiling samovdr and a
teapot. " Maksim Maksimych, don't you want any tea ? "
I cried to him through the window.

11 Thank you, I don't feel like it."

" Do take a glass! I^ook, it is already late and cold."

"No, thank you."

"Well, as you please!" I began to drink tea myself;
some ten minutes later the old fellow came into the
room.

' ' You are right : it will be better to take some tea. I
have been waiting, but his man went to him long ago; evi-
dently something has detained him."

He hurriedly sipped a cup, declined a second, and went
again outside the gate, somewat disturbed. It was clear

1 A grivennik is equal to ten kopeks, or about five cents.
9 Native brandy.

160 The Nineteenth Century

that Pechorin's negligence annoyed the old fellow, especially
since he had only lately been telling me of his friendship,
and since he was so sure an hour ago that Pech6rin would
hurry to see him, the moment he heard his name.

It was late and dark when I again opened the window and
began to call Maksim Maksimych, saying that it was time to
go to bed. He muttered something through his teeth. I
repeated the invitation, but he did not answer.

I lay down on the divan and covered myself with my
cloak. I left a candle on the oven-bench and fell asleep. I
should have slept quietly if Maksim Maksimych had not
entered very late into the room and awakened me. He
threw down his pipe on the table, began to pace over the
room and to poke the fire; finally he lay down, but he
coughed, spit, and tossed for a long time.

" Are bugs biting you ? " I asked him.

" Yes, bugs," he answered, drawing a deep sigh.

I awoke very early the next morning, but Maksim Mak-
simych had anticipated me. I found him in front of the
gate, seated on the bench.

" I must go down to the Commandant," he said, " so please
send for me if Pech6rin should come."

I promised I would. He ran away as if his limbs had
regained their youthful vigour and flexibility.

I/ess than ten minutes had passed when at the end of the
square appeared the man we were waiting for. He was
walking with Colonel N., who brought him to the inn, bade
him good-bye, and returned to the fort. I immediately sent
the invalid for Maksim Maksimych.

The horses were already hitched. The bells now and then
tinkled over the yoke, and the lackey had already twice ap-
proached Pechorin with the report that all was ready, but
Maksim Maksimych had not yet made his appearance.
Fortunately Pech6rin was buried in meditation and was
looking at the blue crags of the Caucasus, and did not seem
to be in a hurry to leave. I went up to him.

" If you will wait a little," I said, " you will have the
pleasure of meeting an old friend of yours."

Mikhail Ytirevich Lermontov 161

" Oh, that 's so! " he answered rapidly. " I was told so
yesterday ; but where is he ? "

I turned to the square and saw Maksim Maksimych run-
ning at full speed. A few minutes later he was near us; he
could hardly breathe; perspiration ran down his face; wet
tufts of grey hair stood out from under his cap and stuck
to his brow; his knees were trembling. He wanted to
throw himself on Pechorin's neck, but the latter quite coldly,
though with a pleasant smile, stretched out his hand to him.
The staff-captain was stupefied for a moment, but then
eagerly grasped his hand with both of his: he could not
speak.

1 ' How glad I am, dear Maksim Maksimych ! Well, how
are you getting along ? ' ' Pech6rin asked.

"And thou ? and you ? " the old man muttered with tears
in his eyes. " How many years — how many days — but
where are you going to ? "

" I am going to Persia, and still farther."

* * Right away ? Do stay here a while, my friend ! Are
we really going to separate at once ? We have not seen
each other for so long. ' '

" I must, Maksim Maksimych," was his answer.

* ' O Lord ! Where are you hurrying so ? I should like
to tell you so much, and ask you so much ! Well, have you
retired ? What have you been doing ? ' '

* * Having ennui ! ' ' Pech6rin answered, smiling.

" Do you remember our life in the fort ? 'T was a fine
country for hunting! You were a passionate hunter! And
B^la?"

Pechorin grew slightly pale and turned away.

" Yes, I remember! " he said, yawning forcedly.

Maksim Maksimych began to entreat him to stay an hour
or two with him.

" We shall have a fine dinner," he said. " I have two
pheasants, and the Kakhetine wine is excellent, — of course
not what it is in Georgia, yet of the best sort. We shall
talk. You will tell me of your life in St. Petersburg. Well,
what do you say? "

VOL. II.— II.

1 62 The Nineteenth Century

" Really, I have nothing to tell, dear Maksim Maksimych.
Now good-bye, I must go, I am in a hurry. Thank you
for remembering me," he added, taking his hand.

The old man knit his eyebrows. He was sad and angry,
though he tried to hide it.

1 ' Forget ? No, I have forgotten nothing. Well, God be
with you ! I hoped to meet you differently. ' '

" Well, well! " said Pech6rin, embracing him in a friendly
manner. "Am I not the same? What 's to be done?
Each one has his road laid out. God knows if we shall
ever meet again ! ' '

He was already in the carriage when he said this, and the
driver was arranging the reins.

"Wait, wait!" Maksim Maksimych suddenly shouted,
catching hold of the door of the carriage: " I almost forgot.
I have your papers, Grigori Aleksandrovich, and I have
been dragging them along with me. I had hoped to find
you in Georgia, but by the will of God we have met here.
What shall I do with them ? "

"Whatever you please!" answered Pechorin. "Good-
bye!"

1 ' So you are making for Persia ? When will you be
back ? " Maksim Maksimych cried after him.

The vehicle was far off, but Pechorin made a sign with
his hand which could be interpreted as follows: "Hardly!
And there is no reason why I should! "

The tinkling of the bell and the rattling of the wheels on
the flinty road had long died away, but the poor old man
was still standing in the same place, buried in meditation.

"Yes," he said at last, trying to assume an indifferent
look, though from time to time a tear of indignation glit-
tered on his eyelashes. "We have been friends, but what
does friendship nowadays mean ? What interest can he
have in me? I am not rich, have no title, and am not a
match for him as to age. What a swell he has become
since he has been in St. Petersburg. What a carriage!
How much luggage ! And what a proud lackey ! ' '
These words were pronounced with an ironical smile.

Mikhail Yiirevich Lermontov 163

;" Tell me," he continued, turning towards me: "What do
you think about it ? What demon carries him now to Per-
sia? It 's ridiculous, upon my word, ridiculous! I always
knew that he was a flighty man upon whom one could not
rely. But, really, it 's a pity he should end so badly j — it
can't be otherwise! I always said it does no good to forget
.old friends!"

Here he turned away to conceal his agitation, and began
to pace up and down the yard, near his vehicle, as if to
examine the wheels, while his eyes kept filling with tears. .

"Maksim Maksimych," I said, walking over to him,
" what kind of papers are those that Pech6rin has left
with you ? ' '

' ' God knows ! Some memoirs. ' '

" What will you do with them ? "

" What! I '11 have them made into cartridges."

" You had better give them to me."

He looked at me in wonderment, muttered something
through his teeth, and began to rummage through his port-
manteau. Then he took out a notebook, threw it contempt-
uously on the floor, then another, a third, a tenth, and
they had all the same fate : there was something childish in
his anger; I was amused, and I pitied him.

" Here they are," said he. " I congratulate you with
your find."

"And I may do with them what I wish ? "

"As far as I am concerned, you may print them in' news-
papers. What do I care ? What am I to him ? Neither a
friend, nor a relative. It is true, we have lived a long time
together under the same roof. But there are many others
with whom I have lived ! ' '

I grabbed the books and carried them quickly away, fear-
ing that the captain might regret his action. They an*-
nounced to us soon after that the carriage would start in an
hour. I gave orders to pack. The captain entered the
room as I was putting on my cap. He was evidently not
getting ready to travel ; he had a kind of a forced, cold
look.

1 64 The Nineteenth Century

" Are n't you going, Maksim Maksimych ? "

"No, sir."

" How so?"

" I have not yet seen the Commandant, and I have to
hand over to him some Crown goods."

" But you have been with him ? "

" Yes, I have, that 's so," he said, hesitatingly, " but he
was not at home, and I did not wait for his return."

I understood him — the poor old man had, probably for the
first time in his life, neglected his official duties for private
reasons, as they say in chancery language, and how he was
rewarded for it !

" Very sorry, Maksfm Maksimych, that we are to part
before our time."

"We uncouth old men can't keep up with you! You
are a worldly, proud young set. As long as you are under
Circassian bullets, you are passable, but when you meet one
of our kind later, you are ashamed to stretch out your hand
to him.

* ' I have not deserved these reproaches, Maksim Mak-
simych."

" I should not have mentioned it, if I had not been egged
on. As for you, I wish you good luck and a happy jour-
ney."

We parted quite dryly. Good Maksfm Maksfmych be-
came a stubborn, quarrelsome staff-captain! Why? Be-
cause Pech6rin, in his absent-mindedness or for some other
reason, stretched out his hand to him, when he was ready
to fall around his neck. It is sad to see a young man lose
all his best hopes and dreams, when the rose-coloured glass
is taken away from him through which he had been looking
at human acts and feelings, though there is hope that he
will exchange his old illusions for new ones, not less transi-
tory, but also not less sweet. But what is to take their
place in a man of Maksfm Maksimych' s years? The
heart involuntarily becomes hardened, and the soul closes
up.

I travelled by myself.

Mikhail Yiirevich Lermontov 165

FROM "THE DEMON"

A sombre fiend, a spirit banished,

Was flying o'er this world of sin;

While thoughts of better days, now vanished,

Upon his brain were crowding in —

Those days, when in the home of light

Midst cherubim he too was bright.

The time was when the comet fleeting,

Its soft caressing smile of greeting

To interchange with him was proud;

When, through the never-ending cloud,

He followed curiously the trace

Of where the caravans had moved

Of stars, whose paths were lost in space, — >

When he believed and when he loved.

A happy first-born of creation,

He knew no thought of fear or doubt:

Existence then was his, without

The weight of ages of damnation

And much and much, — but no, not all,
Had he the strength that dared recall.

ii

Through earthly deserts long he sped,

Without a refuge or an aim.

The ages after ages fled;

I4ke minute after minute, came

Recurring ceaselessly the same.

In this mean world o'er which he lorded

No ill he sowed, relief afforded;

For nowhere he resistance met

That stood against the snares he set.

Sin did but weariness beget.

1 66 The Nineteenth Century

in

Now, o'er the Caucasus, on high,

Was Eden's outcast flying by.

Kazbe*k, beneath, with diamond light

Of everlasting snow shines blinding;

And deep below, a streak of night,

Like some dark cleft, the snake's delight,

In endless curves the Daryal 's winding

And Terek like a lion springing,

With bristling mane, in fury roars;

The beast of prey, the bird, high winding

Its flight in azure where it soars,

Have heard the cry his waves give forth,

And little golden clouds there are

From southern lands, — ay, from afar,

To follow on the journey north.

The cliffs in serried masses seem,

Replete with some mysterious dream,

To bend their heads above the stream,

And watch his waters as they gleam

Perched on the rock, the castle tower,

That stands on Caucasus to wait,

A giant guardian at the gate,

Seems sternly through the mist to glower,

And wild and wonderful about

Was all God's world; but that proud sprite

With but a glance of scorn looked out

On all his God had wrought in might;

His lofty brow did naught express

Except the void of nothingness.

IV

Before him now another scene
Had living beauties to display,
Where Georgian valleys robed in green,
Stretched outward like a carpet, lay.

Mikhail Yiirevich L6rmontov 167

One of earth's happy fertile nooks

Where column-like the ruins stand;

O'er stones of every hue, the brooks

Run downward babbling through the land.

The nightingales among the roses

Sing tuneful love in accents fond

To graceful mates that ne'er respond;

The plane-tree's spreading shade discloses

The spot where ivy thick reposes;

Here gorges where from burning day

The timid deer lie hid away ;

And light, and life, and leaves that rustle,

And voices' hundred-sounding bustle,

And plants whose thousand breaths compete,

And fierce voluptuous noonday heat;

And nights whose aromatic dew

Distils a freshness ever new;

And stars that are as bright as eyes,

As glances of the Georgian maid.

But nature in all charm arrayed

To no new throb of life gave rise

Within that outlaw's sterile breast,

Save for a hostile, cold unrest;

And that which here he contemplated,

He looked with scorn upon and hated.

— Transl. by A. C. Coolidge (unpublished).

DISPUTE

Once, before a tribal meeting

Of the mountain throng,
Kazbek-hill with Shat-the-mountain

Wrangled loud and long.
" Have a care, Kazbek, my brother,"

Shat, the grey-haired, spoke;
" Not for naught hath human cunning

Bent thee to the yoke.

1 68 The Nineteenth Century

Man will build his smoky cabins

On thy hillside steep;
Up thy valley's deep recesses

Ringing axe will creep;
Iron pick will tear a pathway

To thy stony heart,
Delving yellow gold and copper

For the human mart.
Caravans, e'en now, are wending

O'er thy stately heights,
Where the mists and kingly eagles

Wheeled alone their flights.
Men are crafty; what though trying

Proved the first ascent ! —
Many-peopled, mark, and mighty

Is the Orient."

" Nay, I do not dread the Orient,"

Kazbe*k, answering, jeers;
" There mankind has spent in slumber

Just nine hundred years,
lyook, where 'neath the shade of plane-trees

Sleepy Georgians gape,
Spilling o'er their broidered clothing

Foam of luscious grape !
See, 'mid wreaths of pipe-smoke, lying

On his flowered divan,
By the sparkling pearly fountain

Dozeth Teheran !
L,o! around Jerusalem's city,

Burned by God's command
Motionless, in voiceless stillness,

Deathlike, lies the land.

" Farther off, to shade a stranger,

Yellow Nilus laves,
Glowing in the glare of noonday,

Steps of royal graves.

Mikhail Yiirevich L£rmontov 169

Bedouins forget their sorties

For brocaded tents,
While they count the stars and sing of

Ancestral events.
All that there the vision greeteth

Sleeps in prized repose ;
No! the East will ne'er subdue me!

Feeble are such foes ! ' '
" Do not boast thyself so early,"

Answered ancient Shat;
" In the North, look! 'mid the vapours,

Something rises ! What ? ' '

Secretly the mighty Kazbek

At this warning shook,
And, in trouble, towards the nor 'ward

Cast a hurried look.
As he looks in perturbation,

Filled with anxious care,
He beholds a strange commotion,

Hears a tumult there.
Lo ! from Ural to the Danube,

To the mighty stream,
Tossing, sparkling in the sunlight,

Moving regiments gleam;
Glancing wave the white-plumed helmets

Like the prairie grass,
While, 'mid clouds of dust careering,

Flashing Uhlans pass.
Crowded close in serried phalanx

War battalions come;
In the van they bear the standards,

Thunders loud the drum;
Streaming forth like molten copper

Batteries, rumbling, bound;
Smoking just before the battle

Torches flare around;
Skilled in toils of stormy warfare,

The Nineteenth Century

Heading the advance,
See! a grey-haired general guides them,

Threat' ning in his glance.
Onwards move the mighty regiments

With a torrent's roar;
Terrible, like gathering storm-clouds,

Bast, due east, they pour.

Then, oppressed with dire forebodings,

Filled with gloomy dreams,
Strove Kazbek to count the foemen,

Failed to count their streams.
Glancing on his tribal mountains,

Sadly gloomed the hill;
Drew across his brows the mistcap,

And for aye was still.

— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

Alone I wander out along the road;

The stony way gleams through the mist afar;
The night is calm; the waste lists to its God;

And star is speaking unto star.

In heaven wondrousness and grandeur reign;

The earth sleeps in a glow of soft blue sky.
Then why do I feel such distress, such pain ?

What have I to await ? or what regret have I ?

Already I await no more from life ;

And nothing in the past do I regret.
I seek for freedom, and an end to strife;

I only wish to sleep and to forget.

But not as in the tomb's too chilly rest,
My slumber through the ages I conceive

With all Life's vigour throbbing in my breast —
That with my breathing it should gently heave,-

Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov 171

That all the day and night, to soothe my ear,

A tender voice to me of love should sing;
And I must have, in green for ever near,
A dark oak bending o'er me, murmuring.

— Transl. by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard
Monthly, 1895, an(* i*1 The Anglo- Russian
Literary Society, No. 14.

THE SAIL

A solitary sail is gleaming,

While, through the haze of th' azure, she,
In chase of chance's fortune seeming,

Far from a cherished home may be.

The waves leap up, — the wind is blowing,
The mast is bending low and creaks, —

Alas! from happiness not going,
It is not happiness she seeks.

Beneath her prow blue floods are swelling,

Above her glides the sunlit fleece,
But still she prays for storms, rebelling —

As if in storms there can be peace.

— Transl. by Mrs. Heath, in The Anglo-Russian
Literary Society, No. 19.

THE PRAYER

In life's hard, trying moments,

With sorrow in my breast,
I breathe a prayer most wonderful,

Which ever brings me rest.

There is a power of blessedness

In those sweet words enshrined,
Thought cannot grasp their sacred charm

That calms the anxious mind.

i72 The Nineteenth Century

Doubt stays no more, the soul is free,

Her burden rolls away,
Her faith renewed, tears bring relief,
When this sweet prayer I pray.

— Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-
Russian I/iterary Society, No. u.

THE BRANCH OF PALESTINE

Branch of Palestine, the story

Of thy birth and beauty, say
Of what hill and vale the glory

Were thy leaves and blossoms gay ?

Thee, by Jordan's limpid fountains,

Did the Eastern sunbeam bless ?
Thee, on Lebanon's great mountains,

Did the night- wind's love caress ?

Salem' s sons, with sorrow smitten,
As they twined thy leaves with care —

Sang they songs, in old times written ?
Breathed they then a gentle prayer ?

Is thy parent-palm yet living
Where the summer sun beats down,

Still to desert-travellers giving
Shade beneath her broad-leafed crown ?

Or, thy faded palm-tree sighing,

Withered at thy parting, grieves,
While the thirsty dust is lying

Thickly on her yellow leaves ?

Whose the reverent hand that bore thee

From thy country to this place ?
Wept he often, bending o'er thee ?

Have those hot tears left their trace ?

Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov 173

Was lie of God's host the flower,
Shone his cheek with rapture bright,

Worthy heaven, like thee, each hour
In his God's and comrades' sight ?

Branch from Salem, guard unsleeping

Of the golden ikon fair,
Watch before the holiest keeping,

Thou art weighed with silent care !

Beauteous twilight, lamp-beams o'er thee;

Full of peace and comfort, shine;
Ark and cross repose before thee,
Symbols of a love divine !

— Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 16.

Remember' st thou the day when we —

Late was the hour— were forced to part ?
The night-gun boomed athwart the sea;

In painful silence beat each heart;
The lovely day found cloudy close;

A heavy mist the landscape palled;
And seemed it, when that shot arose,

An echo from the ocean called.

Alone I wander by the flood ;

And when a gun booms in its might,
I think in pain how we once stood

Together on that parting night.
And as the mournful echoes roll,

Muffled, along the fluid walls,
From out the caverns of my soul

Death answeringly calls and calls.

—From W. R. Alger's The Poetry of
the Orient, 1865.

174 The Nineteenth Century

AT A

How oft, surrounded by the motley crowd,
Mid whirling dance, and din of music loud,

I sink my senses in a dream, —
When phrased convention, polished fiction, fly
And all the men and women pass me by, —

Like masks their faces seem.

When my cold hands are met with colder still,
And callous city beauties touch me chill,

Bold but effete, with hollow cheer,
Then, to appearance wrapped in light and glare,
I cherish in my heart a fancy fair, —

Kchoes a bygone year.

Forsaking all around, in heart and mind
I fly — a free, free bird — to things behind,

And see myself a child once more,
In places old and dear. The house o'erhead, —
The garden path I see, — the ruined shed, —

The pond well- weeded o'er:

And see across the pond the village lie,
From clustered roof the smoke is rising high,

The mists from meadows far away !
I enter a dark alley : evening red
Blinks through the shrubs, and underneath my tread

The dead leaves rustling stray.

Then a strange longing holds me, — yearning sore
For love, — my fancy's love and nothing more: —

She was a dream and yet my love!
Her sky-blue eyes could flash with silver flame,
Her rosy smile with kindling sweetness came,

Like sunrise through the grove.

Thus, potent master of my fairyland,
Alone I pass my hours, and understand

Mikhail Yiirevich Lermontov 175

The spell of those sweet days to save,
Unharmed, unstained by passion or by doubt,
Like some fair flowery islet, lying out

Where leaps the wild sea wave.

But suddenly a jar renews my sense,—
The happy, happy dream is frighted hence,

That gentle, uninvited guest.
And wild I long my steel-cold lines to fling
Upon the startled crowd, to smite and sting,
With anger from my breast.

— Transl. by Mrs. Charlotte Sidgwick, in Free
Russia, vol. xi., No. 2.

DREAM

'Neath midday heat, in Dagestana's Vale,
With leaden ball in breast I lifeless lay;

From a deep wound smoke rose upon the gale,
And drop by drop my life-blood ebbed away.

Alone I lay upon the sandy slopes;

The craggy cliffs around me crowded steep;
The sunlight burned upon their yellow tops,

And burned on me who slept no mortal sleep.

A dream I dreamed, and saw in sparkling bowers
An evening feast in my home, — far away, —

Where young and lovely women, crowned with flowers,
Conversed of me in accents light- and gay.

But, in their happy talk not joining, one
Sat far apart, and plunged in thought she seemed;

And oh ! the mystery knows God alone, —

This was the dream her young soul sadly dreamed.

She saw in vision Dagestdna's Vale,
Where on the slope a well-known body lay;

From the black wound smoke rose upon the gale,
And in cold streams the life-blood ebbed away.
— From John Pollen '§ Rhymes from the Russian.

176 The Nineteenth Century

AleksySy Vasilevich Kolts6v. (1808-1842.)

Kolts6v was the son of a burgher of Vor6nezh who dealt in hides
and tallow. He received very little training in his coarse and ignor-
ant family, and at ten years of age went to a school just long enough
to learn to read and write. After that his father put him to work
at his business, but the boy found enough time to read some Russian
fairy tales and a few novels. Dmitriev's poems, which fell into his
hands, gave him a taste for poetry, and a "Russian Prosody," given
him by a local book-dealer, for the first time taught him the harmony
of verse and its technical structure. He at once began to compose
poems in imitation of such as he could procure, while a seminarist
whose acquaintance he cultivated corrected and guided his first
attempts. In 1831 Kolts6v went to Moscow where he was introduced
to the critic Byelinski, who at once recognised the unusual talent of
the untutored bard. After a second visit, in 1836, the two became
staunch friends, and under Byelinski's influence Kolts6v produced
the best of his poems. He soon returned to the sordid surroundings
of his native place, and died shortly after of consumption. The strik-
ing picturesqueness of his verse, which is based on the inimitable, un-
translatable diction of the peasant, has given rise to two diametrically
opposed views : according to the one, he is the popular bard par ex-
cellence ; according to the other, he has only made artistic use of the
peasant's language for productions that are eminently refined and,
therefore, removed from the understanding of the masses.

In English translation have appeared : Season of Love, A Prayer,
Two Lives, First Love, in A Russian Poet, by W. R. S. Ralston, in
Fortnightly Review, vol. vi., 1866 ; The Abundant Harvest, The
Mower, The Peasant Musing, in Russian Idylls, by W. R. S. Ral-
ston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii., 1874 ; The Ploughman1 s
Song, The Peasant's Misgivings, The Orphan, Lovers Invitation, in
C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, 1887; The Forest, Betrayed by a
Bride, by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
No. 1 6, and A Winter Wooing, The Mower, by Mrs. Rosa New-
march, id., No. 30.

FIRST LOVE

Her whom I loved in early years

So well, so tenderly, — who filled
With a first passion's hopes and fears

A heart which time has not yet stilled, —
Can I forget her ? Day by day I strive
Her well-loved image from my mind to drive ;

Aleksy6y Vasilevich Koltsov 177

To find new dreams my old dreams to efface,
And let another love my early love replace.

But all in vain. I strive and strive, and yet

Whate'er I do I never can forget.
When in the silent hours of night I sleep,

She comes in dreams; once more I see her stand
Beside my couch ; once more her accents steep

My suffering soul in bliss; once more her hand
In mine so gently, mournfully, she lays,
While her dark eyes on mine in sadness gaze.
Speed, kindly Time, my thoughts from her to sever,
Or set me free with her to live for ever.

— -Transl. by W. R. S. Ralston, in Fortnightly
Review, 1866 (vol. vi.).

THE ABUNDANT HARVEST

i
With a rosy flame the dawn burns on high, but the fog still

broods over the face of the earth ;
Till the day has caught the fire of the sun, and rolled up the

mists higher than the tops of the hills,
And has pressed them into a black cloud. The black cloud

has begun to knit its brows, —
Has begun to knit its brows, as if reflecting, as though

musing upon the place of its birth,
As though remembering how the wild winds will drive it

before them across the face of the wide world.
Then it arms itself with the hurricane and the thunderbolt,

with the lightning's flash and the bow of the cloud.
It has taken up arms, and flown abroad, and struck its

stroke, and poured itself forth
In a torrent of tears, in a flood of rain, over the copious

bosom of the earth.

ii
Now from heaven's heights the dear sun looks down. The

earth a plenteous draught has drunk.
On their corn-fields and gardens, and meadows green, the

rustic folk cannot gaze enough.

VOL. II.— 12.

The Nineteenth Century

For the grace of God these rustic folk have waited long with

trembling and prayer.
Together with the spring there have come to life the secret

thoughts of their quiet minds.
Thought the first : To pour into sacks the grain in the bins,

and to set their carts in order.
Thought the second: Forth from the village by night to

drive their line of carts.
Thought the third When of this they thought, to God

the Lord arose the prayers.
With early dawn have they gone afield. There in handfuls

heaped each scatters the grain, furrows the soil with the

ploughshare's blade, or rips it across with the harrow's

tooth.

in

I will go and gaze with gladdened eye at what God has sent

to men for their toil.
Above my waist the large-grained rye rises, then dreamily

bends well nigh to the ground.
On every side the corn, guest sent by God, greets with a

smile the joyful day.
Over it the breeze floats lustrously, streaming this way and

that a wave of gold.
Now in whole families the peasants commence their harvest,

cutting close to the roots the stalks of the lofty rye.
Into close-packed mows are the sheaves collected ; from the

lines of carts sounds music all the night long.
On every side do the stacks erect their heads in the barn-
yards,— taking up much room, like nobles of yore in

their robes of state.

IV

The dear sun sees that the harvest is done; so colder gleam

his last autumnal rays.

But with warm light glows the peasant's taper — burning
before the pictured form of the Mother of God.
— Transl. by W. R. S. Ralston, in The Contemporary
Review, 1874 (vol. xxiii.).

Aleksyey Vasilevich Kolts6v 179

THE FOREST

IN MEMORY OF PUSHKIN

What does the silent wood
Dream of so pensively ?
What is the sorrow that
Rides in its mystery ?

Why dost thou, Knightly One,
Under its charm's spell,
Head undefended
Hold 'gainst the wind-stroke, —

Standing there shamedly
Letting the storm-clouds
As they pass momently
Burst on thee savagely ?

Thy helmet of green leaves
Bound fastly together
Is whirled from thee far off
And scattered to dust;

Thy boughs, as a mantle falls,
Lie all around thee ;
Thou standest ashamedly,
Forced to submit thee.

Where hath vanished now ; ^ *
Speech that was mighty,
Strength that was prouder than
All a king's bravery ?

A night there hath been for thee,
A calm night within which
Thou heardest the nightingale's
Deluge of song —

i8o The Nineteenth Century

A day there hath been for thee
Triumphant, forgetless —
A friend and an enemy
Sought thy cool freshness;

'T was late in the evening,
And loud blew the storm-blast
Of him that was speaking
Unto thy detractor.

His wrath drove the clouds off
That round thee had gathered,
His love clung around thee
Like wind-gusts, but warmer.

Thou said'st to the other,
With voice that changed loudly,
' ' Go, fall back beyond me !
Go, leave me in peace! "

That voice of his dizzied,
As tone on tone sounded;
Thy very depths trembled,
Their stoutest trunks reeling.

Then, startled from silence,
To life thou awakest;
A whistling of tempest
Re-echoed throughout thee;

'T is the cry of the wood-sprite,
A witch's note shrilling,
Until the loud rumble
Is borne away seaward.

Where now all thy glory
Of verdure and leaf ?
Thou 'st put on dark clothing
Of rain-mist and grief;

Aleksydy Vasilevich Kolts6v 181

Wild art thou and silent,
But, when the wind quickens,
Thy plaint sadly peals out
For him lost untimely.

And so, thou dark forest,
Life-long hast thou harassed
The Knightly, the Noble,
To combat for thee.

Against thee prevailed not
Those stronger than thou art;
Life's autumn in him, though,
Seemed cruelly short.

The woods know in dreamland
That forces of evil
Their malice did spend on
Who least had deserved it ;

From off Knightly shoulders
A head had been struck —
Not by a hero's hand,
But by a recreant.

— Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 16.

BETRAYED BY A BRIDE

Warm the summer sun in heaven,
But for me no heat is given !
Frozen is the very heart's blood,
Through the bride that played me false.

Grief's black pall hath fallen o'er me,
On my sorrow-bowed-down head;
Mortal anguish tears my soul, and
From this body would it break.

182 The Nineteenth Century

Neighbours asked have I to help me;
No man gave me aught but laughter;
Then, to the grave of either parent-*-
Neither heard the voice I called with.

Light then changed for me to darkness,
Senseless on the ground I lay,
Dull the night, until a tempest
Roused me from the tombstone cold*

Raged the storm — a horse I saddled,
Bent on riding — God knows where-
Life is heartless toil to laugh at,
Man's fate evil alone to share.

— Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 16.

THE MOWER

I can't understand it,

I can't make it out —

Yet why I can't see

How it all came about ?

In an unlucky day,

In an ill hour, alack,

I came into this world

With no shirt to my back !

Yet my grand-dad's broad shoulders

Are mine, as you see ;

And my mother's deep chest;

In my cheeks flowing free

Burns the blood of my sire,

Like milk set afire

By dawn's crimson light;

And my locks lie in clusters

As black as the night.

Yet, whatever I do —

Oh, it never goes right !

Aleksyey Vasilevich Koltsov 183

In an unlucky day,
In an ill hour, alack,
I came into this world
With no shirt to my back !

There 's darling Grunyusha,
The Starosta's daughter-
Well, all through the spring
Did I patiently court her;
But he, the old churl,
Was finely put out!
To whom has he planned
That he '11 marry the girl ?
Oh, I can't understand
How it all came about.
Does he think, the old ass,
I was after his money ?
Let him stick to his brass
If he give me my honey —
'T is for her that I pine.
Oh, her face is bright
And as rosy as sunrise,
Her rounded cheeks mellow,
And the flash of her eyes
Might drive a young fellow
Clean out of his wits.

Ah, 't was only last night
That she wept so for me,
But her tears were in vain.
For her dad said downright
That it never could be.
Shall I never again
From my sorrow be free ?
Come, I '11 buy a new scythe,
And I '11 sharpen it well,
Aye, its edge I will whet,
Ere I bid a farewell

The Nineteent ury

To TOJ own native pice.

Nay, Grunya, dc
Don't worry, dear mid.
Though keen » t

I '11 not cut myaeif own;
Good-bye, little tow.
You, hard parent, god-bye!
To a land far away
Will the young mover hie.
Down the Don's bak I ?11 stray
Till I reach the qnrside,
Where the suburbs and gay
And the Steppe strcehes wide.
There, wherever I iance,
The tall plume-gras is blown.

0 Steppe, thou, m>own,
How thy fertile exonse
Lies green on each i and,
So free and so vast
Till it reaches at lar

To the Black Sea's ar strand!

1 have come as th>guest,
But I come not aloe,

I have brought the a friend,
One, my closest an best.
See, my sharp scyte is here,
As myself he is der.
Oh, from end to fr end,
What a joy it will>e
To wander with hn
O'er the Steppe's rassy sea!

Swish, work awa>shoulders;
Swing arms to an fro,
While cool on my ace
The light souther winds blow,
Refreshing and ripling
The Steppe's endiss space.

Nikolay Visilevich Gogol 185

Now, scythe hum a song,
Flash in circis thy blade;
How the Ion grass-ranks fall
As the steel loves along !

0 ye poor blcsoms all,
Your heads a* low-laid !
Ye must dry p and fade

In the straigt swathes of grass
As my younpeart, alas,
Withers up fr a maid, —
And I lanquia for Grunya !

1 '11 rake up *e hay

Till so high iv stack stands

That the wife>f the Cossack

Must pay wit both hands.

I shall sew upny pocket,

My treasure t guard,

Then, home 111 betake me,

TotheStdrosisay:

" Though teas could not make thee

Give Grunya way,

Thou art not 3 hard

But my good leces may."

— Transl. y Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, in The
Anglo-Rusian Literary Society, No. 30.

Nikotey Vasilevich G6gc (— Yan6vski). (1809-1852.)

G6gol was born in the Goverment of Poltdva, in Little-Russia, and
•was educated at home up to his velfth year. His father was a landed
proprietor of more than ordinay culture, who had a private theatre
at his estate, on which were pla^d Little-Russian comedies, some his
own. His grandfather had hel<an important post with the Zapor6g
Cossacks, and being an excellet story-teller, had imbued his grand-
son with the spirit of the recemCossack past. At the Gymnasium,
G6gol evinced little interest in h studies, but devoted himself with
enthusiasm to drawing and to t£ theatre which he himself created
for his schoolmates. He even hen composed some comedies and
edited a manuscript periodical After graduation he went to St.
Petersburg in search of some occpation, but found himself unfit for

1 86 The Nineteenth Century

any work. He also tried literature, and in 1829 appeared his romantic
tale Hans Kuchelgarten. It was so severely criticised that G6gol
bought up the whole edition and committed it to the flames. He
busied himself with the history of Little-Russia, and shortly after he
wrote his beautiful Evenings on the Farm near the Dikanka, in which
the idealisation of the past and of his native country is already tem-
pered by realism. These Evenings at once made him known, and
he became intimate with Zhuk6vski and Pushkin. He dreamed of
devoting himself to history, but prolonged labour was distasteful to
him, and he did not go beyond collecting material for his Little-
Russian epic, Tards Bulba. He really obtained a professorship at
the university, but his professional career was a failure. Instead, he
brought out a series of admirable stories, such as Old-fashioned
Landed Proprietors, The Nose, The Phaeton, The Mantle, and his
comedies, of which the Revizdr'hsiS remained a classic in the Russian
repertoire. He was now completely launched into naturalism, and
was at once recognized by the critic Byellnski (see p. 205), as forming
a new school in literature. A few years later he gave to the world
the first part of the Dead Souls, in which he reached the highest
point of his artistic development. The plot of the story is simple :
an unscrupulous ex-official travels about the country to buy up
peasants, that in reality are dead but before the Government are still
accounted alive until the following census and are subject to taxes ;
by nominally transferring them to his own estate, he is able to mort-
gage them at the rate of three hundred roubles for each "soul."
This plot served G6gol as a thread on which to string his different
types of people. In 1836 G6gol went abroad, and slowly succumbed
to a species of melancholia, which showed itself in an increased
tendency to mysticism. This led him to burn the greater part of
what was to form the second book of the Dead Souls, and to practice
self-chastisement.

In English translation have appeared: The Portrait, in Black-
wood's Edinburgh Magazine and in Living Age, 1847 ; Home Life in
Russia, by a Russian Noble (a literary forgery), 2 vols., London,
1854 ; Cossack Tales, translated by G. Tolstoy, London, [1860] ; St.
Johris Eve and Other Stories, translated by Miss I. F. Hapgood,
New York, [1886], and London, 1887 ; TarasBulba, by I. F. Hapgood,
New York, [1886], (Lovell's Library, No. 1016), and London, 1887 ;
Tchitchikoff's Journey ; or, Dead Souls, by I. F. Hapgood, New York,
[1886], and London, 1887 ; also Dead Souls, 1887 and 1888, and Taras
Bulba, 1887 and 1888, published by Vizetelly ; A May Evening,
in Cosmopolitan, vol. iii.; The Cloak, in Short Stories, 1891,
and (with The Portrait and Old-fashioned Farmers) in Wayward
Dosia^ bv GreVille, Chicago, 1891 ; Inspector General, or, Revizdr,

Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol 187

translated by A. A. Sykes, London, 1892, 1893; The Inspector, a
comedy, translated by T. Hart Da vies, London, 1892 ; On Christmas
Eve, translated by F. Volkhovsky, in Free Russia, vol. x., No. 12;
Marriage and A Madman's Diary, in the Humour of Russia, by B.
L. Voynich, London and New York, 1895; extracts from The
Inspector, and from Mirgorod, translated by I. F. Hapgood, are given
in the Library of the World's Best Literature.

THE DNIEPER

Wonderful is the Dnieper in quiet weather when softly and
smoothly he hurries his full waters by forests and hills. He
neither rustles, nor thunders. You look at him, and you do
not know whether his majestic breadth is in motion, or not,
and it looks as if he were all cast of glass and as if his
blue, mirrored path, measureless in breadth and endless in
length, meandered and wound over the wide green world.
The hot sun then joyfully looks down from his height and
plunges his beams in the coolness of the glassy waters, and
the woods of the shore are brightly reflected therein. Green-
locked ones ! They crowd together with the field flowers to
the brink, and bending over look into the water, and do not
get tired looking at their bright image, and. smile to it, and
greet it, shaking their branches. They dare not look into
the middle of the Dnieper; none but the sun and the blue
sky look upon it; rarely a bird flies to the middle of the
Dnieper. Proud one! There is not a river in the world
like him.

Wonderful, too, is the Dnieper in a warm summer night,
when all is asleep, — man, and beast, and bird, — and God
alone majestically surveys heaven and earth and majestically
waves His garment. From the garment fall stars ; stars burn
and gleam over the world, and all together are reflected in the
Dnieper. The Dnieper holds them all in his murky lap ; not
one of them will escape him, unless it be dimmed in heaven.
The black forest, weighted down by sleeping ravens, and an-
ciently disrupted mountains hang down over him and attempt
to cover him with their long shadows. In vain ! There is
nothing in the world that could cover the Dnieper. Ever
blue, he spreads his gentle floods in the night as in the day,

1 88 The Nineteenth Century

and may be seen as far as the human eye can see. Proceed-
ing in his voluptuous course and hugging the shore in the
coolness of the night, he leaves behind him a silvery streak
which flashes like the blade of a Damascus sabre, but the
blue one again falls asleep. Even then the Dnieper is won-
derful, and there is no river like him in the whole world!

But when the grey clouds pass like mountains over the
sky, the black forest shakes to its roots, the oaks crack, and
the lightnings, piercing through the clouds, at once illumine
the whole world, — then the Dnieper is terrible ! The mounds
of water thunder as they beat against the mountains, and
with a splash and groan they rush back, and weep, and lose
themselves in the distance. Thus grieves an old Cossack
mother as she leads her son to the army : in his best spirits
and boldly he rides forth on his black charger, his arms
akimbo, his cap poised jauntily; but she sobs and runs after
him, seizes him by his stirrup, catches his bridle, and wrings
her hands, and is dissolved in bitter tears.

THE REVIZOR
ACT I. (room in the Burgomaster's house}. SCENE i. THE

BURGOMASTER, CURATOR OP CHARITABLE INSTITU-
TIONS, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, JUDGE, CAPTAIN OP
POLICE, DOCTOR, TWO SERGEANTS OP POLICE

Burgomaster. Gentlemen, I have called you together to
give you a very disagreeable piece of news: a Reviz6r is
coming.

Judge. What, a Reviz6r ?

Curator. What, a Reviz6r ?

Burgomaster. A Revizor from St. Petersburg, incognito,
and with secret instructions, if you please.

Judge. I declare!

Curator. Things have been too easy with us, so there it is.

Inspector. Good gracious ! With secret instructions !

Burgomaster. I really had a presentiment of it: last night
I did nothing but dream of two extraordinary rats. I tell
you, I never saw the like of them; they were black and of

Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol 189

unusual size. They came, nosed around, and went away.
I '11 read to you the letter I received from Andre" y Ivanovich
Chmykhov whom you, Artemi Filippovich (Curator), know.
This is what he writes: " Dear friend, and benefactor"

(mutters in a whisper as he runs down the lines} ' ' and to

let you know." Ah, here it is: "among other things I
hasten to inform you that an official is here with instruc-
tions to inspect the whole Government, and especially our
county (significantly raises his finger}. I have learned this
from most trustworthy people, although he passes himself
for a private individual. Knowing that, like all people, you
have some peccadilloes, for you are a clever fellow and don't

let things slip through your fingers " {Stops.} Oh,

that 's private " I advise you to take the proper precau-
tion, for he is likely to come any hour, if he has not arrived

yet and is not living somewhere incognito Yesterday ' '

Oh, these are family matters: " sister Anna Kirflovna

has been visiting us with her husband ; Ivan Kirilovich has

grown very stout, and is all the time playing the fiddle ' '

and so forth, and so forth. So that 's the way it stands!

Judge. But that 's an unusual affair. There must be
something back of it.

Inspector. But what is that all for, Ant6n Ant6novich
(Burgomaster) ? Why is the Reviz6r coming to us ?

Burgomaster (sighing}. Why! It 's evidently our fate!
(Sighing again.) Thanks to the Lord, they have come
down on other towns before this; but now our turn has
come.

Judge. I think, Anton Ant6novich, that there is a deli-
cate reason of a political nature behind all this. It 's simply
this: Russia, you see, is about to wage war, and the Minis-
ter has sent a special official to find out whether there is not
any treason here.

Burgomaster. What a guess! And you call yourself a
clever man ! Treason in a county town ! Does it lie on the
border, eh ? Why, you 'd have to gallop three years from
here to get to another country.

Judge. No, let me tell you. You don't no, you don't

190 The Nineteenth Century

The government is pretty shrewd about things: never

mind its being far away, but the government is on the look-
out.

Burgomaster. Let it be or not, but I have given you
warning, gentlemen, so take notice! I, for my part, have
taken some precautions, and I advise you to do the same.
Especially you, Arte"mi Filippovich ! No doubt, the official
will first of all want to inspect the charitable institutions
under your charge, and so you had better give everything a
decent appearance. Let there be clean caps, and don't let
the patients look like blacksmiths, as they generally appear.

Curator. Oh, that is not hard! I see no reason for not
putting on clean caps.

Burgomaster. Yes. And let there also be written over

every bed in Latin, or some other language that 's your

business, Christian Ivanovich, — the name of every illness:

when any of them got ill, what day of the month It is

not right for your patients to smoke such strong tobacco that
one has to sneeze upon entering. Yes, it also would be bet-
ter if there were not so many of them, for it will be ascribed
to improper care or the physician's lack of skill.

Curator. Oh, Christian Ivanovich and I have taken our
measures in regard to the doctoring : the nearer to nature,
the better; we do not employ expensive medicaments. A
man is a simple affair: if he is to die, he '11 die anyway; and
if he is to get well, he '11 get well anyway. Besides, it would
not be an easy matter for Christian Ivanovich to carry on a
conversation with them, he does not know a word of Rus-
sian.

(Christian Ivdnovich emits a sound \ somewhere between ee
and eh.)

Burgomaster. I should advise you also, Amm6s Fddoro-
vich, to direct your attention to the court-house. In the
antechamber, where the people wait with their petitions,
your janitors have been raising geese with their goslings
that continually get between one's legs. I admit it is praise-
worthy to raise your own geese, and there is no reason why
janitors should not rear them; only, don't you know, it

Nikolay Vasilevich G6gol 191

is n't quite the thing to raise them in that place 1 had in

mind to tell you that before, but I somehow forgot.

Judge. Well, I '11 order them to be taken to the kitchen
this very day. Can' t you come and take dinner with me ?

Burgomaster. Then again, it 's wrong for all kinds of rags
to be hung out in the court-room to get dry, and on the case
with the documents lies a hunting-whip. I know you are
fond of the chase; but it would be better for the time being
to take it away, and as soon as the Revizor has gone, I don't
see why you can't hang it back there again. Then again

your assessor , of course, he is a clever fellow ; but there

is an odour about him as if he had just come out of a still,
— that won't do either. I had intended to tell you about
that long ago, but something or other drew my attention
away from it. There are means against it, if it is, indeed,
as he says, a natural odour with him: JTOU might recommend
him to eat garlic, onions, or something else. In this case
Christian Ivanovich might help him with some of his
medicaments.

(Christian Ivdnovich emits the same sound as before.}

Judge. No, you can' t drive it out of him : he says that his
nurse once hurt him when he was a baby, and ever since he
has had a brandy smell about him.

Burgomaster. I only mention it to you. As to the internal
disposition and what Andre*y Ivdnovich in his letter calls
' ' peccadilloes, " I can' t say anything. Strange to say, there
is not a man who has not some sin to answer for. God
Himself has arranged it so, and the followers of Voltaire are
in vain preaching against it.

Judge. What do you call peccadilloes, Anton Ant6no-
vich? There are peccadilloes and peccadilloes. I tell
everybody openly that I take bribes, but what bribes?
Greyhound pups, That 's an entirely different matter.

Burgomaster. Pups or anything else, it 's bribes all the
same.

Judge. Not at all, Anton Ant6novich. But suppose a
man's fur-coat costs five hundred roubles, and his wife's
shawl-

1 92 The Nineteenth Century

Burgomaster. What of it if your bribes consist in grey-
hound pups? But you don't believe in God; you never go
to church. I am, at least, firm in my faith an£ attend

church regularly every Sunday; whereas you Oh, I

know you : when you begin to talk about the creation of the
world, my hair simply stands on end.

Judge. I have reasoned it out all by myself, with my
own intellect.

Burgomaster. Well, in this case much intelligence is worse
than none at all. However, I only mentioned the County
Court. To tell the truth, there is not much likelihood of
anybody's looking in there: it 's an enviable place, and God
Himself protects it. But you, L,uka I^ukich, as Inspector of
Schools, must take especial care of the teachers. They are,
of course, knowing people, and have been educated in all
kinds of colleges, but they have very strange ways about
them, no doubt inseparable from their learned profession.
One of them, for example, — the one with the fat face, I can't
think of his name, — can't get along, upon standing on the
platform, without making a grimace like this (imitates him),
then he begins to claw his beard under the necktie. Of course,
it does not matter much if he makes such a face to a pupil of
his, and maybe that is necessary, for I am not a judge of
that; but judge yourself, — if he should do so to a visitor, it
might have a bad effect : the Reviz6r, or someone else, might
take it to himself. The devil knows what that might lead to.

Inspector. I declare I don't know what to do. I have
talked several times to him about it. Only a few days ago,
when the Marshal of the Nobility entered his classroom, he
made a face I had never seen before. He did it from the
goodness of his heart, but I had a reprimand for instilling
radical thoughts into the youths.

Burgomaster. I must also draw your attention to the
teacher of history. He is a learned man, that 's evident,
and is chockful of knowledge, only he lectures with such
fervour that he forgets himself. I once listened to his lecture :
as long as he was talking of Assyrians and Babylonians,
things went tolerably well; but when he got to Alexander

Nikolay Vasilevich G6gol 193

the Great, I can't tell you what became of him. I thought
there was a fire, upon my word! He ran down from the
platform and with all his might and main smashed a chair
against the floor! I '11 admit Alexander the Great was a
hero, but why break chairs over him ? There is only a loss
to the Crown from it.

Inspector. Yes, he is fiery! I have remarked so to him
several times. He says: " I don't care, I '11 not spare my
life for the sake of science ! ' '

Burgomaster. Yes, such is the inexplicable law of fate: a
clever fellow is either a drunkard, or he makes faces so that
you have to carry out the holy images.

Inspector. God preserve us from being schoolmasters.
You are afraid of everything! Everybody meddles with
you, everybody wants to show that he, too, is a clever fellow.

Burgomaster. All that could pass, — but the accursed in-
cognito! He '11 suddenly poke in his nose: "Ah, there you
are, my darling ! Who, ' ' will he say, * ' is the judge here ? ' '
— " I^yapkin-Tyapkin."— " Fetch me in I^ydpkin-Tyapkin !
And who is the Curator of the Charitable Institutions ? " —
" Zemlyanika."— • " Fetch in Zemlyanika! " That' s what
is bad.

SCENE 2. THE SAME AND THE POSTMASTER

Postmaster. Tell me, gentlemen, what is it, — what official
is coming ?

Burgomaster. Have n't you heard ?

Postmaster. I have heard from Petr Ivanovich Bobchfnski.
He was just in my office.

Burgomaster. Well, what do you think of it ?

Postmaster. What I think? Why, there will be a war
with Turkey.

Judge. That 's it! I thought so myself.

Burgomaster. Well, you 're both wrong.

Postmaster. I insist, with Turkey. It 's all the French-
men's doing.

Burgomaster. Nonsense, war with Turkey! It 's we

VOL. II. — 13.

194 The Nineteenth Century

who '11 catch it, not the Turks. So much is certain; I have
a letter.

Postmaster. If that 's the case, there will be no war with
Turkey.

Burgomaster. Well, how do you feel about that, Ivan
Kuzmich ?

Postmaster. How I feel ? How do you feel, Anton An-
t6novich ?

Burgomaster. How I feel ? Not exactly afraid, but just a
little shaky. The shopkeepers and townspeople worry me.
They say I 've laid it on to them; but I declare that if I
have taken here and there a thing from one, I have done so
without any ill-feeling. I even think (takes his arm and
leads him aside), I even think there might have been some
denunciation against me. For why should the Revizor
come to us? Listen, Ivdn Kuzmich, could n't you, for our
common good, you know, just open a little and read every
outgoing and incoming letter in your postoffice, to see
whether they do not contain some denunciation or simply
some report ? If there is nothing in them, you may seal the
letters again, or for that, you can return the letters unsealed.

Postmaster. I know, I know. Don't teach me; I have
been doing it, not exactly as a precaution, but chiefly from
curiosity, — I 'm awfully fond of knowing what 's up in the
world. I assure you, it makes most interesting reading!
Now and then there is a letter that I read with real pleasure,
— there are all kinds of incidents described in them, and they
are so edifying, — better than in the Moscow Gazette!

Burgomaster. Well, tell me, have n't you found out from
them something about an official from St. Petersburg ?

Postmaster. No, there 's nothing in them about anybody
from St. Petersburg, but a great deal about Kostroma and
Sardtov people. Really, what a pity you do not read letters !
There are fine passages in them. For example, there was a
lieutenant who in a letter to his friend described a ball in

a most playful yes, very fine: " My life, my dear friend,"

says he, " flows in the empyrean: there are plenty of young
ladies, music is playing, the flag is flying ' ' he described

Nikolay Vasilevich G6gol 195

it with great, very great feeling. I purposely kept the let-
ter. Do you want me to read it to you ?

Burgomaster. Well, this is not the right time for it. So
do me the favour, Ivdn Kuzmich: if, by chance, there
should be a complaint or denunciation, keep it back without
any further ado.

Postmaster. With the greatest pleasure.

Judge. Look out, you '11 get into trouble yet.

Postmaster. Good gracious!

Burgomaster. Not at all, not at all. It would be a differ-
ent matter, if you were to make a public affair out of it, but
this is, so to say, a family matter.

Judge. Yes, there 's mischief brewing ! I was really com-
ing to tell you, Anton Ant6novich, that I wanted to present
to you a puppy, a sister to that dog that you know. You
have heard that Cheptovich and Varkhovinski have started
a litigation; so I 'm in clover: I hunt hares now on one
estate, now on the other.

Burgomaster. Lord, what do I care for your hares now!
That accursed incognito is running through my head ! I am
only waiting for the door to open, and

SCENE 3. THE SAME, BOBCHINSKI AND DOBCHINSKI ENTER,
OUT OF BREATH

Bobchinski. An extraordinary occurrence !

Dobchinski. An unexpected occurrence!

All. What, what is it ?

Dobchinski. An unforeseen affair : we come to the inn

Bobchinski (interrupting him}. Petr Ivanovich and I come
to the inn

Dobchinski (interrupting'}. Eh, permit me, Petr Ivano-
vich, let me tell it.

Bobchinski. Oh no, let me let me, let me you aren't

a good speaker

Dobchinski. And you '11 get confused and you '11 forget
something.

Bobchinski. No, I won't, upon my word, I won't. Don't

196 The Nineteenth Century

bother me, let me tell it, don't bother me! Please, gentle-
men, do tell Petr Ivdnovich not to bother me.

Burgomaster. For the Lord's sake, do tell, what is it?
My heart is in my mouth. Sit down, gentlemen! Take
seats! Petr Ivanovich, here is a chair for you. (All sit
around the two Petr Ivdnovichs.} Well, what is it, what ?

Bobchinski. Allow me, allow me; I '11 tell it all in order.
No sooner had I the pleasure of leaving you, just as you
were disturbed by the letter you had received, yes, I at once

ran now, please don't interrupt me, Petr Ivdnovich!

know it all, truly, I do. So, you see, I ran to Korobkin'
house. As I did not find him at home I turned in to Ras-
takovski's, and as I did not find him at home I stopped a
Ivan Kuzmich's house to inform him the piece of news
had received, and as I was going away from there, I fell i
with Petr Ivdnovich.

Dobchinski (interrupting}. Near the booth where they se
cakes.

Bobchinski. Near the booth where they sell cakes. Yes,
and as I fell in with Petr Ivduovich, I said to him: " Ha
you heard the news that Anton Ant6novich has received in
trustworthy letter ? ' ' But Petr Ivdnovich had already hea
that from your housekeeper Avdotya, who had been sent
something or other to Filip Ivanovich Pochechtiev.

Dobchinski (interrupting}. For a keg of French brandy.

Bobchinski (warding him off with his hand). For a keg
French brandy. So Petr Ivdnovich and I came to Poche-
chtiev Now, Petr Ivdnovich, please don't don't in-
terrupt me, please, don't interrupt me! We went

Pochechuev, and on the way Petr Ivdnovich said to me:
41 Let 's go," says he, " to the inn. My stomach, — I ha
eaten nothing since morning, — why, there 's a rumbling i

my stomach " Yes, Petr Ivanovich's stomach " I

the inn," says he, " they have received some fresh salmon
so we '11 have a bite." No sooner had we entered into
inn, when a young man

Dobchinski (interrupting}. Of good appearance and in cit
zen's clothes

Nikolay Vasilevich G6gol 197

Bobchinski. Of good appearance and in citizen's clothes,
was walking up and down the room, such an expression in his

face physiognomy carriage, and up here (moves his

hand around his forehead) very distinguished. I had a kind
of presentiment, and I said to Petr Ivdnovich: "There 's
something up here. ' ' Yes. And Petr Ivanovich beckoned to
the innkeeper and called him up, — 't was innkeeper Vlas, —
his wife had a baby three weeks ago, such a lively creature,
he '11 be an innkeeper like his father. So, calling up Vlas,
Petr Ivanovich asked him in a whisper: " Who," says he,
' ' is that young fellow ? " to which Vlas answered : ' ' That, ' '

says he oh, don't interrupt me, Petr Ivanovich, I beg

you, don't interrupt me, you won't be able to tell the story,
upon my word you won't: you lisp, you have a whistling

tooth in your mouth, I know "That young man,"

says he, " is an official," yes, " he 's from St. Petersburg, and
his name is," says he, " Ivdn Aleksdndrovich Khlestak6v,
sir, and he is on his way," says he, " to the Government of
Saratov, and," says he, " he is acting very strangely: he has
been here nearly two weeks, he never leaves the inn, takes
everything on credit, and won't pay a kopek." When he
told me that, a light dawned upon me at once. " Oho! "
said I to Petr Ivanovich

Dobchinski. No, Petr Ivdnovich, it was I who said ' ' Oho ! "

Bobchinshi. First you said it, and then I. " Oho! " said
we. ' ' What reason could he have to stay here, when his
road is to the Government of Saratov ? ' ' Yes, sir, he is that
very official.

Burgomaster. Who — what official ?

Bobchinski. The official about whom you have received
that information, — the Reviz6r.

Burgomaster (terrified}. Don't say that, the Lord be with
you! it is n't he.

Dobchinski. He ! He does n't pay his bill, and he does n't
leave. Who else could it be, if not he? His passport is
made out for Saratov.

Bobchinski. He — he — upon my word, he He is so ob-
serving : he watches everything. He saw Petr Ivdnovich and

198 The Nineteenth Century

me eating salmon, — mainly because of, on account of, Petr

Ivdnovich's stomach yes, he even looked into our plates.

I just trembled with fear.

Burgomaster. Lord, have mercy upon us sinners! Where
is he staying there ?

Dobchinski. Number five, under the staircase.

Bobchinski. The same room that the transient officers had
a fight in last year.

Burgomaster. Has he been here long.

Dobchinshi. Some two weeks. He arrived on the day of
St. Basil the Egyptian.

Burgomaster. Two weeks! (Aside.} Friends and saints,
help me! Within these two weeks the sergeant's wife has
been flogged! The prisoners have received no provision.
Drunkenness and dirt in the streets ! Disgraceful ! Shame-
ful! (Tears his hair.} •

Curator. Ant6n Ant6novich, had we not better make an
official call in the inn ?

Judge. No, no! First send the Mayor, the clergy, the
merchants. It says in the book " John the Mason "

Burgomaster. No, no! I^et me attend to it! I 've had
hard cases before in life, and I not only got out of them
hale, but even received thanks. Maybe God will succour me
now too. ( Turning to Bobchinski.} You say, he is a young
man?

Bobchinski. Yes, about twenty-three or -four at most.

Burgomaster. So much the better: it is easier to get at the
bottom of a young fellow. It is a tough job, if you have an
old devil to deal with; but a young fellow is all on the sur-
face. You, gentlemen, make your proper arrangements,
and I '11 go myself, or maybe with Petr Ivanovich, privately,
just for a walk to see that travellers are properly treated.
Here, Svistun6v!

Svistundv. At your service, sir !

Burgomaster. Fetch me at once the captain— or, no. I need
you. Tell somebody there to fetch me the captain as
quickly as possible, and come back here. (The sergeant
runs away.)

Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol 199

Curator. Let us go, let us go, Amm6s Fe"dorovich. There
might, indeed, happen some misfortune.

Judge. What are you afraid of? Put clean nightcaps on
the patients, and your deed is done.

Curator. Bosh, nightcaps! The patients are supposed to
get oat gruel, and instead there is such a smell of cabbage in
the corridors that you are compelled to hold your nose.

Judge. I am at ease on that score. Indeed, who would
think of looking into the County Court ? And if he should
take it into his head to glance at some papers, he '11 wish he
had not done it. It 's now fifteen years I have been occupy-
ing the bench, but when I look into a brief, I give it up in
despair. Solomon himself could not make out what is right
and what wrong.

(The Judge, Curator of Charitable Institutions, Inspector
of Schools, and Postmaster go out, and in the door bump
against the returning sergeant?)

FROM "DEAD SOULS"

MRS. KOROBOCHKA

" It 's a fine village you have there, motherkin. How
many souls are there ? ' '

" There are in it nigh upon eighty souls, my friend," said
the proprietress. " The trouble is, times are bad: now, last
year there was such a failure ot crops; God save us from
another!"

" Yet your peasants are rather a fine lot, and their cabins
look as if they were in good trim. Oh, please tell me your
name! I am so distracted, having arrived here in night
time "

" Kor6bochka, college secretary."

" Much obliged. And your Christian name and patro-
nymic ? ' '

" Nastdsya Petr6vna."

"Nastdsya Petrovna? It's a fine name— Nastisya Pe-
tr6vna. I have an aunt, my mother's sister, whose name
is Nastdsya Petrovna."

200 The Nineteenth Century

"And what is your name ? " asked the proprietress: " you
are the tax-collector, if I am not mistaken ? "

1 ' No, motherkin ! ' ' answered Chichikov smiling : ' * not
the tax-collector. I am travelling on my own account. * '

" Oh, then you are buying things! What a pity that I
sold the honey so cheap to the merchants ! I am sure, my
friend, you would have bought it of me."

11 No, it is n't honey I am after."

" What then ? Hemp ? Why, I have n't much of it just
now, — something like half a pud."

" No, motherkin, it 's different goods I want. Tell me,
have any of your peasants died ? ' '

" Oh, my friend, eighteen of them ? " said the old woman
with a sigh. "And it 's all good workers that have died.
There have been born some since, it is true, but what good
is there in them ? It 's all small fry. When the tax-collector
comes around, I '11 have to pay for the dead ones all the same
as if they were living. I^ast week my blacksmith was
burned ; he was such a fine blacksmith, and he was a lock-
smith too."

" Have you had a fire, motherkin ? "

" God has spared me that misfortune. A fire would have
been worse; no, he burnt himself, my friend. There was
something inside of him that caught fire : he had been drink-
ing hard. A blue flame came out of him, and he burnt all
up, and grew black like coal. Oh, he was such a fine black-
smith! Now I can't drive out at all, for there is nobody
here to shoe the horses."

" God's will is in everything, motherkin! " said Chichikov
heaving a sigh : ' ' we must say nothing against the wisdom
of God Turn them over to me, Nastdsya Petr6vna! "

"Whom, my friend?"

" I mean all those that have died."

" How do you mean, to turn them over ? "

11 Why, just turn them over, or, if you wish, sell them to
me. I '11 pay you for them."

" How do you mean that ? I declare, I can't see through
it. Do you intend to dig them up ? "

Nikol&y Vasilevich G6gol 201

Chichikov perceived that she was far from the mark, and
it became necessary to explain to her the business. He
told her in a few words that the transfer or sale would be
only on paper, and that the souls would be mentioned as if
they were still alive.

" What do you want them for ? " said the old woman, as
she stared at him.

"That's my affair."

" But they are dead!"

" Well, who said they were alive ? That Js where your
loss comes in, because they are dead. You have been pay-
ing for them all this time, and I will deliver you from
trouble and expenses. You understand ? I will not only
deliver you, but I '11 pay you fifteen roubles to boot. Well,
is it clear now ? ' '

" I confess, I don't know," said the proprietress deliber-
ately: " I have never before sold dead souls."

" I guess not! It would, indeed, have been an odd thing
if you had. Or do you, really, think there is some use in
them?"

" No, I don't think exactly that. What use can there be
in them ? There 's no use in them. The thing that troubles
me is, they are dead."

" I see she is a thick-skulled old woman," Chichikov
thought. * ' listen, motherkin ! Just consider well : you
are ruining yourself when you pay taxes for them as if they
were alive "

" Oh, my friend, don't mention it! " the proprietress in-
terrupted him. "It is n't three weeks yet that I had to
pay one hundred and fifty, and to grease the tax-collector
besides."

"That 's it, motherkin! Now, just consider that you
will not have to grease the tax-collector again, for it is I who
am going to pay for them, and not you. I take upon my-
self all obligations. I '11 even have the deed made out at
my expense, do you understand that ? ' '

The old woman became pensive. She saw that the busi-
ness was indeed advantageous, but so new and unusual that

202 The Nineteenth Century

she was growing suspicious, lest the purchaser should get
the better of her, especially since God knows where he came
from, and that, too, at night time.

" Well, motherkin, is it a bargain ? " said Chichikov.

' * Really, my friend, I have never yet had a chance to sell
corpses. As for living ones, it 's only three years hence that
I sold some to Protopopov, — two girls at one hundred roubles
apiece, — and he 's been thankful for them: they have turned
out to be excellent workers, and they can make even nap-
kins."

" But we are not concerned about living ones, — God be
with them ! I am asking for dead ones."

" Really, I am afraid, to begin with, I might sell them at
a sacrifice. Maybe, my friend, you are cheating me. Who
knows but what they are worth more ? ' '

" Listen, motherkin, — what a funny woman you are!
What worth can they have ? Think of it : they are dust.
Do you understand ? — they are nothing but dust. Take any
useless, worthless thing, say, a common rag, and that has
some value : it may be, at least, bought in the paper factory,
but what are these good for ? Say yourself, what are they
good for?"

" I '11 agree, you are right. They are good for nothing.
The only thing that bothers me is that they are dead."

" Confound that club-headed woman! " said Chichikov to
himself, as he was beginning to lose patience. " Go and
straighten things out with her ! She has made me sweat,
accursed woman! " He took out a handkerchief from his
pocket and began to wipe off the perspiration that really had
come out on his forehead. In reality, Chichikov had no
special reason to lose his patience : there is many an honour-
able man, a man of state, who is a fine reproduction of Mrs.
Kor6bochka. Let him take some notion, and you will not
get him away from it; all your proofs in the world, even if
they are as clear as daylight, will rebound from him, like
a rubber ball from the wall. Having wiped off his perspira-
tion, Chichikov resolved to try her from another side, hoping
to get her at last on the right path.

Nikolay Vasilevich G6gol 203

" Motherkin, either you do not want to understand my
words, or you are just talking, to be a- talking. I am offer-
ing you money, fifteen roubles in assignats, — do you under-
stand? It is money I am offering you. You can't pick it
up in the street. Now, confess, what did you sell your
honey at?"

" Twelve roubles a pud."

" You are sinning a little, motherkin. You did not sell
it at twelve."

* ' Upon my word, I did. ' '

" Well, you see, but it is honey! You have been gather-
ing it probably for a year, with care, and trouble, and worry;
you had to be about, to starve the bees, to feed them a whole
winter in the cellar— while dead souls are not of this world.
Here you have to undergo no trouble: it was God's will
that they should leave this world and cause your estate a
loss. There you received a compensation for your labour
and your care at the rate of twelve roubles, and here you
receive for nothing, and not twelve, but fifteen, and not in
silver, but in blue assignats."

Chichikov did not doubt that after such convincing proof
the old woman would finally capitulate.

" Really," answered the proprietress, " I am such an in-
experienced widow! I think I had better wait a little:
maybe some other purchasers will come, and I '11 get used to
the price."

" Shame, shame, motherkin! Simply, shame! Now, just
think what you are saying ! Who is going to buy them ?
Well, what use can anybody make of them ? "

" Maybe they are some good on the estate " retorted

the old woman and did not finish her speech. She opened
her mouth and looked at him almost with terror, wondering
what he would say to that.

' * Dead souls on the estate ! What a guess you have made !
What do you want to do with them ? Use them for scare-
crows to drive the sparrows out of your garden ? "

" The power of the cross be with us! What awful things
you say ! ' ' muttered the woman, making the sign of the cross.

204 The Nineteenth Century

"Well, where else would you make use of them? Be-
sides, I leave their bones and graves to you: the transfer is
only on paper. Well, what do you say ? Give me, at least,
some kind of an answer."

The old woman fell again to musing.

' ' What are you thinking about, Nastasya Petr6vna ? ' '

" Really, I can't quite make it out; let me better sell you
some hemp."

" What do I want with the hemp ? I declare, I am asking
you for something else, and you foist hemp upon me ! The
hemp is all right, I '11 come another time, and will take
your hemp. How is it now, Nastasya Petr6vna ? "

" Upon my word, it 's such a strange article, and so odd."

Here Chichikov's patience burst all bounds; in his anger
he banged a chair against the floor, and sent her to the devil.

The proprietress was dreadfully put out by the devil.
" Oh, don't mention him, God be with him! " she cried out,
while growing pale : ' ' Only night before last the accursed
one appeared to me in my dream. I had carelessly been lay-
ing cards to tell fortune in the evening after prayers, so the
Ix>rd evidently sent him to me to punish me. Oh, he looked
so horrible: his horns were longer than a bull's."

" I wonder how it is they don't come to you by the dozen.
Out of mere Christian charity I wanted to help a poor widow

that is suffering want Go to perdition with your whole

village! "

" What curses you are uttering! " said the woman, look-
ing at him in terror.

11 1 can't find the right words with you! Really, not to
use any bad words, you are just like a watchdog that is
lying on the hay: he does n't himself eat any hay, and won't
let anybody else eat it. I had intended to buy all kinds of
produce from you, for I am also a government contrac-
tor " He lied here, just in passing, without any further

thought, but it came in unexpectedly at the right moment.
Government contracts made a strong impression on Nastdsya
Petr6vna; at least she spoke in an almost imploring voice:

" But what has made you so dreadfully angry ? If I had

Vissarion Grigorevich Byelinski 205

known before that you are such an excitable man, I would n't
have contradicted you at all."

1 ' There is really no cause for anger ! The whole business
is n't worth an empty eggshell, and why should I get angry
over it? "

' * Well, if you want them, I '11 let you have them for fifteen
in assignats ! Only, my friend, let me tell you about your
government contracts: if you have any occasion to buy up
rye, or buckwheat, or grit, or meat, — please don't forget
me."

" No, mother kin, I won't," he said while wiping off the
sweat that came down his face in three streaks. He asked
her whether she did not have in town some attorney or
friend whom she could give the power to make out the deed
and everything else that was necessary.

' ' Certainly ! The son of Father Cyril, the protopope,
serves in the court-house, ' ' said Kor6bochka.

Chichikov asked her to write a letter to him granting him
power of attorney, and, to save more trouble, began to com-
pose the letter himself.

" It would be nice," Kor6bochka said to herself in the
meanwhile, "if he bought flour and beef of me for the
government. I must get on the good side of him : there is
some dough left from last night, so I '11 go and tell Fetinya
to make some griddle cakes."

Vissarion Grig6revich Byelinski. (1811-1848.)

Few persons have exerted such a far-reaching influence upon
Russian literature as the critic Byelinski, and a whole generation of
writers was cast in the mould of his aesthetic views. ByeKnski was the
son of a district physician in the Government of Pe"nza. His home
life was exceedingly unhappy and his childhood was neglected ;
from the district school, to which he was sent up to his fourteenth
year, he was transferred to the Gymnasium and later to the Moscow
University, but he was a very poor student and careless about his
person. In Moscow he joined the Schelling circle of the students
and with them devoted his time to the study of literature, especially
of Shakspere, Goethe, Schiller, and Hoffmann. In 1832 he left the
university, and the next two years he passed in utter wretchedness

206 The Nineteenth Century

and poverty. Then he took his first critical essay, Literary Dreams^
to a magazine, and his literary career began. Under Schelling's in-
fluence he denied the previous importance of Russian literature, and
proclaimed the nascent genius of G6gol, who had just made his
appearance. Between 1836 and 1838 Byelinski's circle of friends
vaulted over to Hegel's philosophy, and under this new influence
Byelinski rejected all lyrics and satire as not compatible with an un-
biassed, objective contemplation of the phenomena of life, and dis-
credited all productions that dealt with the living questions of the
day. In 1839 he was called to St. Petersburg to take charge of the
critical and bibliographical departments of the Memoirs of the Father-
land. Here began the third and most important period of his activity :
he soon recanted his former aesthetic theories and evolved the theory
of "art for life," which henceforth became the criterion for all
literary criticisms. Of his many excellent essays of this period
dealing with Russian belles-lettres, the best is A View on Russian
Literature for the Year 1847. He died of consumption, brought
about mainly by his many privations.

THE NATURAL SCHOOL

Our literature has been the fruit of conscious thought; it
appeared as an innovation, it began by imitation. It did
not stop there, but continually strove to be independent,
national; from being rhetorical it strove to become simple,
natural. This tendency has been made perceptible by a
continuous progress, and forms the meaning and soul of the
history of our literature. We will say without reserve that
in no Russian writer has this tendency been crowned by such
success as in G6gol. This end was attained only through
the exclusive application of art to reality, in spite of all
ideals. It became necessary to direct all the attention to the
people, the masses, to depict common men, and not merely
the pleasant exceptions from the universal rule, that invari-
ably tempt the poets to idealise, and that bear upon them-
selves a foreign stamp. That was Gogol's great merit, and
it is that precisely which the men of the old culture regard
as his crime against the laws of art. By his manner he has
completely changed the view on art itself. One may ap-
ply to the works of all the Russian poets, by stretching the

Vissarion Grigorevich Byelinski 207

point a little, the old and obsolete definition of poetry as
" Nature adorned " ; but it is impossible to do so in relation
to Gogol's works. For these the more appropriate definition
is "a reproduction of reality in all its truth." Here the
whole matter is in types, and the ideal is here not understood
as an adornment (consequently — a lie), but as the correlation
of the types created by him, in accordance with the thought
which he wishes to develop in his production.

Art has in our days got the better of theory. The old
theories have lost all their credit; the very people that had
been educated in them follow not them, but a certain strange
mixture of old and new conceptions. Thus, for example,
some of them, in rejecting the old French theory in the
name of Romanticism, were the first to give the aggravating
example of introducing into their novels persons from the
lower strata, even villains, under the appropriate appellation
of Pilferer and Cutter; but they immediately rectified them-
selves by bringing out moral persons, together with the im-
moral ones, under the name of Truth-lover, Charitable, etc.
In the first case was to be seen the influence of new ideas,
in the second, of old conceptions, for according to the
recipe of ancient poetics at least one clever fellow must be
added to a number of fools, and at least one virtuous man to
a number of good-for-nothings. In either case these be-
tweeners left out of sight the main thing, namely, art; for
it did not occur to them that their virtuous and vicious per-
sons were not men, not characters, but rhetorical personifica-
tions of abstract virtues and vices. That explains better
than anything why for them theory, rule, is more important
than fact, reality : the latter is inaccessible to their compre-
hension. However, not even talented writers and geniuses
are always able to escape the influence of theory. G6gol
belongs to the number of the few who have entirely avoided
every influence of any and all theory. Though capable of
understanding art and of admiring it in the productions of
other poets, he nevertheless proceeded in his own way, fol-
lowing his deep and true artistic instinct with which Nature
had endowed him lavishly, and without being tempted to

208 The Nineteenth Century

imitate the successes of others. Of course, that did not in
itself give him any originality, but enabled him to preserve
and express in its entirety that originality which was the
part and parcel of his individuality, consequently, like
talent, a natural gift. It is for that reason that he appeared
to many as having entered Russian literature from without,
while, in reality, he was its necessary phenomenon, which
was the logical conclusion of all its preceding evolution.

G6gol's influence on Russian literature has been enorm-
ous. Not only did all the young talents throw themselves
on the path which he had indicated, but some writers who
had already gained a reputation abandoned their old way
and proceeded on the new. Gogol wrote nothing after the
Dead Souls. There is only his school upon the arena of
literature. All blame and accusation that formerly was
hurled at him is now directed against the natural school, and
whatever attack is still made upon him is on account of that
school. What is he, then, accused of ? There are but few
accusations, and they are nearly always the same. At first
they attacked the school, they claimed, on account of its
eternal attacks upon the officials. In the representation of
the life of this class some saw sincerely, others feignedly,
evil - minded caricatures. These accusations have been
silenced for some time. Now they accuse the writers of the
natural school for loving the people of the lower occupations,
for making heroes of their novels out of peasants, janitors,
coachmen, for describing the purlieus and refuges of naked
poverty and frequently of all kind of immorality. To put
the new writers to shame, the accusers point with triumph
to the beautiful days of Russian literature, refer to the
names of Karamzin and Dmitriev, who had chosen for their
productions high and noble objects, and adduce as an ex-
ample of now forgotten prettiness the sentimental song: "Of
all the flowerets I loved most the rose! " But we shall re-
mind them that the first noteworthy novel, was written
by Karamzin, and its heroine was " Poor I4za," a peasant

girl, who was seduced by a coxcomb But, they will

say, everything is decent and pure there, and the Moscow

Vissarion Grigorevich Byeiinski 209

peasant girl does not yield to the best-brought-up lady.
Now we have, at last, come to the cause of the dispute:
you see, the old poetics is to be blamed for it. It does not
mind your representing peasants, but not otherwise than
masqueraded in theatrical costumes, who display feelings and
ideas that are strange to their existence, position, and educa-
tion, and who express themselves in a language no one
speaks, and least of all peasants, — a literary language that
is embellished by " wherewith, aforementioned, than which,"

and so forth. In short, the ancient poetics permits you

to represent anything you please, but immediately prescribes
so to adorn the subject under discussion as to make it utterly
impossible to discover what it is you had intended to repre-
sent.

The natural school follows the very opposite rule: the
nearest possible resemblance of the persons represented to
their prototypes in reality does not form its all, but is its first
condition, a non-compliance with which would vitiate any-
thing good there may be in the composition. It is a heavy
condition which only a talent can comply with. After that,
how can those writers help loving and honouring that ancient
poetics, who formerly could without talent insinuate them-
selves successfully in the field of poetry? How can they
help regarding the natural school as their most terrible
enemy, since it has introduced a manner of writing which is
inaccessible to them ? That, of course, refers only to people
with whom egotism enters in the discussion of this question ;
but there will also be found many who in all sincere con-
viction do not love the natural in art, through the influence
of the old poetics upon them. These people, in addition,
complain with special bitterness, because art has now forgot-
ten its former purpose. " Poetry," they say, " used to in-
struct while amusing, compelled the reader to forget the
tribulations and sufferings of life, and represented to him
only pleasant and smiling pictures. The former poets used
to represent also pictures of poverty, but a poverty that was
neat, washed, and expressing itself modestly and with refine-
ment ; then, at the end of the novel there always appeared a

VOL. II. — 14.

210 The Nineteenth Century

sentimental young lady or maiden, a daughter of rich and
refined parents, or at least a philanthropic young man, —
and, in the name of these kind hearts, was enthroned abund-
ance and happiness where there was poverty and misery,
and grateful tears watered the beneficent hand, — and the
reader involuntarily raised his batiste handkerchief to his
eyes and felt that he was growing better and more senti-
mental

' ' But now ! — See what they are writing about now ! Peas-
ants in bast shoes and gabardines who often smell of brandy;
an old woman — a kind of centaur, by whose dress one can-
not easily tell of what gender that creature may be; purlieus
— refuges of misery, despair, and debauch, which one can
reach only by yards knee-deep in mud; some drunkard, —
a scribe or a seminarist turned teacher, expelled from serv-
ice,— all that is described from nature, in the nakedness of
terrible truth, so that the reading of it will give you some
bad dreams ' '

Thus, or in some such manner, speak the intrepid dis-
ciples of the ancient poetics. In reality, their complaints
are that poetry has quit lying shamelessly, that it has
changed from a nursery tale into a not always pleasant nar-
rative, that it has ceased being a rattle, by the sound of
which children leap about or fall asleep. Strange people,
happy people! They have succeeded in remaining all their
life children, and even in their old age to be minors, — and
now they demand that all should resemble them! Read
your old fairy tales, nobody will keep you from them; but
leave to others the occupations that suit those who are of
age. For you — the lie; for us — truth: let us divide without
quarrelling. You do not want our share, and we will not
take yours gratis

But there is another cause which interferes with this
friendly division, — egotism which regards itself as virtue.
Indeed, let us take a man who is well-off, or even rich. He
has just had a good, savoury dinner (he has an excellent
cook), has seated himself in his comfortable arm-chair, with
a cup of coffee, in front of a glowing fireplace; he feels good

Vissarion Grigorevich Byelinski 211

and warm, a feeling of well-being makes him happy; he
takes a book and lazily turns its pages; his brow wrinkles
over his eyes, the smile disappears from his rosy lips, he is

agitated, disturbed, annoyed And there is reason for it !

The book tells him that not all people in the world live
as well as he; that there are purlieus where a whole family
shakes with cold under rags, though it had, probably, but
lately known of ease; that there are people in the world
who by birth and fate are destined for misery, — that the
last kopek goes for "green wine" not always from in-
dolence, but also from despair. And our happy man feels ill
at ease, and rather ashamed of his comfort. The whole
trouble is in that wretched book : he had picked it up for
his pleasure, and he had read himself into melancholy and
ennui. Away with it! "A book is to give you a pleasant
pastime ; I do not need it to find out that there is much sor-
row and sadness in life, and if I do read, it is to forget it
all ! " he exclaims.

Yes, dear sybarite, for your peace books ought to lie, and
the poor man forget his woe, the hungry his hunger, the
groans of suffering must reach your ears as musical notes,

lest your appetite be spoiled, your sleep disturbed Now

let us imagine another lover of pleasant reading in the same
situation. He has to give a reception, the time is drawing
near, and there is no money. His steward, Niklta Fedorych,
has for some reason been slow in sending the amount. At
last the money arrives, the reception can come off. With a
cigar in his mouth, happy and satisfied, he is lying on the
couch and, having nothing to do, his hands lazily stretch
out towards a book. Again the same story ! That damn-
able book tells him the exploits of his Nikita Fedorych, that
low-born churl, who had been accustomed from childhood
eagerly to pander to the passions and whims of others, who
was married to the ex-sweetheart of his master's progeni-
tor Away with that wretched book !

Now imagine again another man in a comfortable condi-
tion, who in his childhood had been running about bare-
footed, had been a messenger-boy, and at fifty had somehow

212 The Nineteenth Century

risen to rank, and who possessed a small competency.
Everybody reads, so he must too. But what does he find
in the book ?— His biography and, at that, correctly told,
though no one, but himself, knows anything of the experi-
ences of his life, and no author could possibly have discovered

his secret He is not merely agitated, he is mad, and

with a feeling of dignity he eases his anger by the following
consideration: "That 's the way they write nowadays!
That 's what Free Thought has come to! Did they write
that way before ? No ! It used to be such a fluent style,
and they discussed such tender and elevated subjects that
it was a joy to read, and there was no cause for annoyance! "

There is a special class of readers who, from a sentiment
of aristocratism, hate to meet people of the lower strata even
in books, especially those that have no sense of proprieties
and refinement; they despise dirt and misery, as the very
opposite of their luxurious parlours, boudoirs, and cabinets.
These refer to the natural school only with a haughty con-
tempt and ironical smile Who are they, these feudal

barons, that they loathe the " low-born mob " that in their
eyes is lower than a good horse ? Be not in a hurry to learn
about them in books of heraldry or at European courts: you
will not find their coats-of-arms; they do not go to Court,
and if they have seen the fashionable world, it was only in
the street, through brilliantly lighted windows, as much as
curtains and blinds permitted them to do so. They cannot
boast of ancestors: they are generally officials, or new-made
nobles that are rich only in plebeian traditions of a grand-
father who was a steward, an uncle — a contractor, and, at
times, a grandmother — a baker of altar breads, and an aunt
— a huckstress.

A contempt for the lower strata of society is in our days
no longer a vice of the higher classes; no, it is the disease of
upstarts, a monstrous outgrowth of ignorance, and vulgarity
of feelings and conceptions. A wise and cultured man would
never manifest this disease, if he were at all subject to it,
because it does not comport with the spirit of the time, be-
cause to proclaim it would be the croaking that announces

Vissari6n Grig6revich Byelinski 213

the raven. It seems to us that, though doublefacedness is
contemptible, in this case it is better than a raven sincerity,
for it bears witness to cleverness. The peacock that proudly
opens his splendid tail before the other birds has the reputa-
tion of a beautiful, not clever, animal. What is to be said
of the raven that haughtily displays its borrowed plumage ?
Such haughtiness is always devoid of sense, and is generally
a plebeian vice. Where is there more display and pretence
than in those classes of society that come right after the
lowest? It is so, because there is most ignorance there.
See how deeply the lackey despises the peasant who is, in
every respect, better, nobler, humaner than he! Whence
that pride in the lackey? — He has adopted his master's
vices, and therefore he regards himself as more cultured than
the peasant. External lustre is ever taken by coarse natures
for culture.

1 ' What sense is there in flooding literature with peas-
ants ? ' ' exclaim the aristocrats of a certain category. In
their opinion the writer is an artisan who is to furnish work
according to order. It does not enter their minds that in
the selection of the subject for his composition the author
cannot be guided by the will of others, or even his own free
choice, for art has its laws that must be complied with in
order that one may write well. It demands above all that
the writer should be true to his own nature, his talent, his
fancy. How are we to explain the fact that one likes to
represent happy subjects, another sad ones, if not by the
nature, character, and talent of the poet? What one loves
and is interested in, that one knows best, and what one
knows best, one represents best. That is the most legitimate
justification of the poet who is blamed for the selection of his
subjects; it is not satisfactory only to those who have no
understanding of art and vulgarly confound it with the arti-
san's profession.

Nature is the eternal model of art, and the greatest and
noblest subject in nature is man. And is a peasant not
a man ? But what can there be of interest in a coarse,
untutored man ? Why, his soul mind, heart, passions,

214 The Nineteenth Century

inclinations, — in short, the same as in the cultured man.
Granted, the latter is more interesting than the first; but is
the botanist interested only in artfully improved garden
plants, and does he neglect their wild-growing field proto-
types ? Is not for the anatomist and physiologist the organ-
ism of a wild Australian as interesting as the organism of an
enlightened European ? For what reason should art, in this
respect, differ so much from science ? Then you say that a
cultured man is higher than an uncultured one. One has to
agree with you in that, but not unconditionally. Of course,
the most frivolous worldly man stands incomparably higher
than a peasant, but in what respect ? Only in worldly edu-
cation, but that in no way interferes with many a peasant's
being higher than he, for example, as regards his mind, feel-
ings, character. Education only develops the moral powers
of man, it does not give them; Nature gives them to man.
In this distribution of her precious gifts, she acts blindly,
without considering the classes. If from the educated class
of society there issues a greater number of remarkable men, it
is only because there are there more means for development,
and not at all because Nature has been more niggardly with
the men of the lower classes in the distribution of her gifts.

' * What can one learn from a book in which is described
some miserable wretch who has drunk himself to perdition ? "
say again these second-hand aristocrats. Why, certainly
not worldly manners and refinement, but the knowledge of
man under certain conditions. One man gets drunk through
indolence, through bad bringing up, through weakness of
character, another through unfortunate circumstances in life
for which he may not bear the least blame. In either case,
they are instructive and curious examples for observation.
Of course, it is much easier to turn away with disgust from
a fallen man than to stretch out to him a consoling and
helpful hand, just as it is much easier to judge him severely
in the name of morality than with sympathy and love to
enter into his situation, to probe the cause of his fall, and
to pity him as a man, even when he appears much to blame
for his fall.

Vissarion Grigorevich Byelinski 215

The Redeemer of the human race came into the world for
all men; not wise and educated men, but simple-minded
and simple-hearted fishermen He called to be " fishers of
men ' ' ; not rich and happy men, but poor, suffering, fallen
men He sought, in order to console some, and encourage and
raise others. Festering sores on a body that was hardly
covered with unclean rags did not offend His eyes, which
shone with love and charity. He, the son of God, loved
men humanely and sympathised with them in their misery,
dirt, shame, debauch, vices, wrongdoings. He bid those
throw a stone at the adulteress who could not in any way
accuse their own consciences, and put the hard-hearted
judges to shame, and gave the fallen woman a word of con-
solation,— and the robber, who breathed his last on the cross
as a well-deserved punishment, for one moment of repent-
ance, heard from Him the word of forgiveness and peace.
But we, the sons of men, we want to love only those of our
brothers who are like us, we turn away from the lower
classes as from pariahs, fallen ones, lepers. What virtues
and deserts have given us the right to do so? Is it not
rather the very absence of all virtues and deserts ? But the
divine word of love and brotherhood has not in vain been
proclaimed to the world.

That which formerly was only the duty of persons who
had been called to serve at the altar, or the virtue of the
chosen few, has now become the obligation of societies, and
no longer serves as a token of mere virtue, but also of cult-
ure of private individuals. See, how in our century every-
body is interested in the lot of the lower classes, how private
philanthopy is everywhere being changed into state institu-
tions, how on all sides are formed well-organised, richly
endowed societies for the aid of the needy and suffering, for
the suppression and prevention of misery and its inevitable
consequence — immorality and debauch. This universal
movement, so noble, so humane, so Christian, meets its de-
tractors in the persons of the worshippers of a dull and stark
patriarchalism. They say that fashion, whim, vainglory,
and not philanthropy, are active here. Suppose it is so, but

216 The Nineteenth Century

when and where have similar trifling impulses not taken
part in the best of human actions ? But how can one assert
that only such impulses have been the cause of these phenom-
ena ? How can one think that the chief creators of these
phenomena, who by their example have influenced the
masses, are not inspired by nobler and higher impulses?
Naturally, there is no cause for admiring the virtue of peo-
ple who throw themselves into charity not from a sense of
neighbourly love, but from fashion, from imitation, from
vainglory. But it is a virtue as regards society which is so
full of the spirit that it can direct the activities of trivial
people towards the good ! Is it not an extremely encour-
aging phenomenon of modern civilisation, of progress of
mind, education, and culture ?

Entirely admitting that art must above all be art, we
nevertheless think that the idea of some kind of a pure,
exclusive art that lives in its own sphere, that has nothing
in common with the other sides of life, is an abstract,
visionary idea. There has never and nowhere existed such
an art. No doubt, life is divided and subdivided into a
multitude of sides that have their separate existences ; but
these sides continually interact in a living organism, and
there is between them no sharply drawn line. No matter
how you may parcel out life, it is always one and insepar-
able. They say: for science we need mind and reason, for
art, fancy, and they think that they have thus once and for
all settled the matter, and that it is fit to go in that shape
into the archives. Does not art need mind and reason as
well ? And can the savant get along without fancy? No!
The truth is that in art fancy plays the most active and im-
portant part, while in science, mind and reason. There
are, to be sure, productions of poetry in which nothing is to
be seen except a strong, brilliant fancy; but that is not a
common rule for artistic productions.

Sergyey Timofeevich Aks&kov. (1791-1859.)

Aksdkov represents the rare example in Russian literature of an
author who passed from the pseudo-classic style to the realistic

Sergyey Timofeevich Aksakov 217

school of G6gol without taking part in the intervening Romantic
movement. He was born at Ufd, and graduated from what was then
the Kazdn University at sixteen years of age. He then served as a
government translator, and devoted himself to literature, mainly to
translations from the French. His sympathies were entirely with
Shishk6v, Karamzm's opponent. In 1827 he was made a censor, in
which capacity he gained an unenviable reputation as an unscrupul-
ous partisan. In the thirties he came under the influence of G6gol,
and in 1833 he wrote The Snowstorm, which was later followed by an
admirable series of sketches on angling and on hunting, containing
charming pictures of animal life. In 1856 appeared his great work,
The Family Chronicle^ in which he gives vivid descriptions from the
life of a landed proprietor in the Orenburg country, abounding in ex-
quisite landscape pictures. The Family Chronicle differs from all
the other productions of the realistic school in that there is not a
word of fiction in it, but that it is based entirely on actual facts.

FROM "THE FAMILY CHRONICLE"

Towards the end of June the heat was oppressive. After
a sultry night there blew, at daybreak, a fresh eastern
breeze, but it subsided as soon as the sun grew warmer.
Grandfather awoke at sunrise. He found it warm sleeping
in a small upper room, even though the old-fashioned win-
dow frame with its tiny panes was lifted up to its fullest
capacity, because his bed was curtained with a bar of home-
spun netting. This was a necessary precaution, for without
the bar the pestering mosquitoes would have eaten him up
and would have kept him from falling asleep. The winged
musicians swarmed around in clouds and stuck their long
stings through the thin screen, and they hummed all night
their wearisome serenades. It is funny for me to say so,
but I can't help confessing that I like the descant buzz and
even the biting of the mosquitoes; I hear in it the oppressive
summer, the luxurious, sleepless nights, the shores of the
Buguruslan that are overgrown with green bushes, from
which resound on all sides the songs of the nightingales; I
recall the rapture of my young heart and the sweet, unac-
countable pining for which I would now gladly give the rest
of my flickering life.

218 The Nineteenth Century

Grandfather awoke, with his warm hand wiped the sweat
from his straight, high forehead, put his head out from
under the bar, and began to laugh. Vanka Mazan and
Nikanorka Tanaychenok were snoring on the floor on which
they were stretched out in laughable, though artistic, pos-
tures. "I declare, the dog's children are snoring!" said
grandfather and smiled again.

Stepan Mikhaylovich was an enigmatic man. After such
a strong verbal exordium one would have expected a poke
in the side of the sleeper, with the viburnum cane which
always stood by his bed, or a kick with the foot, or even a
greeting with the chair; but grandfather only laughed out
loud as he awoke, and thus, as they say, got into a good
humour for the whole day.

He rose without any noise, made one or two signs of the
cross, stepped with his bare feet into leather slippers that
were worn red, and, dressed in nothing but a shirt of peasant
homespun (grandmother would not let him have loom- woven
linen for shirts), he went out on the porch where he was re-
freshed by a whiff of the morning moisture. I just said that
Anna Vasilevna did not give him any loom-woven linen for
shirts, and every reader would be right in remarking that
this was not in keeping with the character of the wedded
pair. But really I can't help it, and I beg you not to be
angry with me, it was as I said: feminine nature carried
the day over the male, as is always the case ! Though she
was frequently beaten for giving him coarse underwear, she
continued to offer him the same, until the old man took it as
a matter of course. Once grandfather made use of the last
and the most efficacious means: he chopped up with an axe,
on the threshold of his room, all the underwear that had
been made of peasant homespun, in spite of grandmother's
wail, who kept on imploring that Stepdn Mikhaylovich
might strike her, but should spare his own property, but
even this means was of no avail ; the coarse underwear made
its appearance again, — and the old man surrendered.

I am much to be blamed for interrupting the story about
" my grandfather's good day," in order to contradict the

Sergy£y Timofeevich Aksakov 219

reader's possible remark. Without disturbing anyone, he
took down a felt blanket which always lay in the storeroom,
spread it out on the upper step of the porch, and sat down
upon it, to receive, as was his custom, the rising sun.

Before sunrise a man's heart experiences unconsciously a
happy feeling; but grandfather had the additional pleasure
of looking at his estate which was then already well provided
with all necessary farm buildings. It is true, the yard was
not fenced in, and the cattle from the peasant yards, which
were gathering into a common herd before being driven out
into the pasture, made a call upon him in passing, just as on
that morning and as always happened in the evenings. A
few dirty pigs rubbed and scratched themselves against the
very porch on which grandfather was sitting, and, grunting,
feasted on lobster shells and all kinds of remnants from the
dinner which were unceremoniously thrown out near the
same porch. Cows and sheep made their visits too. Natur-
ally there were left indecent traces of their calls, but grand-
father saw nothing disagreeable in all that, but on the
contrary took his delight in watching the healthy cattle,
which were to him a sure sign of the sufficiency and well-
being of his peasants.

Soon the loud snapping of a long shepherd whip drove the
visitors away. The servants began to rise. The tall groom
Spiridon, who was called Spirka to a good old age, led out
one after another two roan colts and one bay, hitched them
to a post, groomed them, and then walked them around by a
long rope, while grandfather admired their stature, as he
also took delight in the breed he expected to raise from them
(he was later completely successful in that). Then awoke
also the old stewardess who slept in the loft of the cellar; she
came out of the cellar, went to the Buguruslan to get washed,
sighed, sobbed (that was her unchangeable custom), prayed
to God while turning to the east, and began to wash, rinse,
and clean the pots and dishes.

The swallows and martins chirped and sang, circling mer-
rily in the sky; the quails called loudly in the fields; the
songs of the skylarks rang out in the air; the crake cried

220 The Nineteenth Century

hoarsely, sitting in the bushes; the whistling of waterhens,
and the tocking and bleating of wild snipes were borne
thither from the nearby swamp, and the blue-throated
warblers vied in mocking the nightingales.— The bright sun
rolled out from beyond the hill.

Smoke rose from the peasants' huts, bending with the
wind in light grey columns, like a procession of river boats
flaunting their flags; the peasants started for the field.

Grandfather wanted to wash himself in cold water, and
then to drink tea. He awoke his disgracefully sleeping
servants. They leaped up, like half-witted people, in fright,
but Stepdn Mikhaylovich's merry voice reassured them:
" Mazan, fetch me some water! Tanaychenok, wake Aks-
yutka and the lady, — and tea!" There was no need of
repeating the commands: awkward Mazan was running as
fast as his feet could carry him with a bright brass wash-
basin to get some water at the spring; and agile Tanayche-
nok awoke the homely servant girl Aksyutka who only fixed
the kerchief that had slipped from her head and at once went
to wake the good old lady Anna Vasilevna. A few minutes
later the whole house was on its feet, and everybody knew
that the old gentleman had gotten up in a good humour.
Fifteen minutes later a table was placed near the porch, and
it was covered with a fine white cloth of home make ; upon it
boiled a samovar in the shape of a huge brass tea-pot, and
Aksyutka was busy attending to it; the old lady, Anna
Vasilevna, bade Stepan Mikhdylovich good-morning, with-
out sighing and groaning, as would be proper on other morn-
ings, and loudly and merrily asked his health : ' ' How did
you rest yourself, and what kind of dreams did you have ? ' '

Grandfather greeted his wife kindly and called her Arfsha;
he never kissed her hand, but gave her his hand to kiss as
a token of his favour. Anna Vasilevna bloomed out and
grew younger. Her obesity and clumsiness disappeared as
if by magic ! She brought a little stool and seated herself
on the porch near grandfather, which she never dared to do
if he did not receive her graciously.

us have tea together, Arisha ! " said Stepan Mikhay-

Sergyey Timofeevich Aksakov 221

lovich, " before it is hot. Though it was sultry to sleep, I
slept so well that I had no dreams ? And you ? ' '

Such a question was an unusual favour, and grandmother
speedily replied that she slept well every time Stepan Mikh-
dylovich passed a good night, but that Tanyusha had tossed
a great deal. Tanyusha was the youngest daughter, and the
old man loved her more than his other daughters, as is often
the case. These words disquieted him, and he ordered not
to wake Tanyusha, but let her awaken herself. Tatydna
Stepdnovna had been wakened together with Aleksdndra
and Elizaveta Stepanovna and they were all dressed, but
they did not dare tell him that. Tanyusha immediately un-
dressed herself, went back to bed, ordered to close the
shutters in her room and, though she could not fall asleep,
lay for two hours in the dark; grandfather was satisfied be-
cause Tatyana had had a good rest. His only son, who was
nine years old, was never made to get up early.

The elder daughters appeared at once. Stepan Mikhdy-
lovich graciously gave them his hand to kiss and called one
Lizanka and the other I^eksdna. Neither of them was a
silly girl. Aleksdndra united her father's vivacity and
excitability with her cunning mind, but she did not have
his good qualities. Grandmother was a very simple woman
and was completely controlled by her daughters. If she
ever undertook to outwit Stepan Mikhdylovich, she did so
solely by their instigation, which the old man knew all by
heart and for which, on account of her simple-mindedness, she
had often to pay dearly. He also knew that his daughters
were ready to deceive him at any convenient moment, and
only from ennui, or in order to preserve his own peace, that
is, only when he was in good humour, did he allow them to
think that they were really deceiving him; but in the first
fit of anger he told them all without mercy, in the most un-
ceremonious words, and sometimes he even beat them. But
the daughters, like Eve's real grandchildren, did not lose
their courage: the moment the hour of anger passed and
their father's face was becalmed, they set out once more to
try their old tricks, and they were often successful.

222 The Nineteenth Century

Having drunk his tea and talked over all kinds of things
with his family, grandfather got ready for the field. He
had told Mazan long before : * ' The horse ! ' ' and an old
greyish brown gelding was already at the porch; it was
hitched to a long peasant waggon that was very comfortable,
being woven with a close rope netting and having a long
seat in the middle that was covered with a blanket. Groom
Spiridon was seated in the waggon as a coachman; his livery
was quite simple, that is, it consisted only of his shirt; he
was barefooted and was girded with a red woollen girdle
from which hung a key and a brass comb. On a previous
occasion Spirid6n had ventured out on such an expedition
even without a hat; but grandfather scolded him for it, so
he had prepared this time something in the shape of a hat
out of broad bast bands. Grandfather made fun of his head-
gear and, putting on his field coat of unbleached homespun
and a cap, and placing under him a cloak against rainy
weather, seated himself in the waggon. Spirid6n placed
under himself his common gabardine, having folded it three
times; it was made of white cloth but was painted blood-red
with madder, which grew very profusely in the fields. This
red colour was so customary with our old men that the
neighbours called the Bagrov servants ' * madderlings " ; I
heard that nickname myself some fifteen years after my
grandfather's death.

Stepan Mikhdylovich was satisfied with everything in the
field. He looked at the deflorated rye which stood like a
wall and as high as a man's stature. A soft breeze was
blowing, and bluish waves passed over it, appearing now
lighter, now darker in the sun. It was a joy for the master
to look at such a field! Grandfather surveyed also the
young oats and all the summer crops; then he went to the
untilled field, and had himself taken up and down his
ploughed-up acres. That was his usual way of judging how
well the ploughing had been done; every clod of earth which
had been untouched by the plough gave a jerk to the shaky
waggon, and if grandfather happened to be out of sorts, he
stuck a small stick or a withe into such a place, sent for the

Sergyey Timofeevich Aksakov 223

village elder, if he was not with him, and the inquest began
right on the spot. This time everything went off favour-
ably; there may have been some untouched spots, only
Stepan Mikhaylovich did not notice them, or did not wish
to notice them.

He cast also a glance at his prairie meadows, and looked
with delight at the dense high grass that was to be mowed
in a few days. He visited also the peasant fields, in order
to find out for himself who was going to have a good harvest
and who not. He also looked at their untilled ground, in-
vestigated matters closely, and forgot nothing. Passing by
a fallow field and noticing ripe strawberries, grandfather
stopped and with the aid of Mazan gathered a fine bunch
full of fine, large berries which he took home as a present
for his Arisha. In spite of the heat he was away until noon.
The moment they noticed grandfather's waggon coming
down the hill, the dinner stood on the table, and the whole
family waited for him on the porch.

" Well, Arisha," merrily spoke grandfather, " it is a fine
harvest God is giving us! The Lord's mercy is great!
Here are some strawberries for you ! ' '

Grandmother beamed with joy.

" The berries are nearly all ripe," he continued, " so let
them begin picking to-morrow ! ' '

Saying these words, he went into the ante-chamber; the
odour of warm cabbage soup was wafted to him from the
hall. "Ah, it is ready! " Stepan Mikhdylovich said with a
happier mien, " thanks! " and without going to his room,
he went straight into the hall and seated himself at the
table. I must mention that it was grandfather's custom,
when he returned from the field, whether it was early or
late, to find the dinner on the table, and God preserve them
if they did not get ready with the meal upon his return.
Such mishaps had brought about some sad results. But on
that lucky day everything went as if greased, without a
hitch. A sturdy fellow, Nikolka Ruzan, stood behind grand-
father with a large birch-branch, in order to drive away the
flies. The hot cabbage soup, which a Russian will not refuse

224 The Nineteenth Century

in the hottest weather, grandfather sipped from a wooden
spoon, because a silver spoon burned his lips. Then fol-
lowed cold beet soup with ice, with transparent sterlet, with
salted sturgeon, which was as yellow as wax, and with
shelled crawfishes, and similar light dishes. All that was
washed down by home-brewed beer and kvas, also with ice.
It was a very jolly dinner. All spoke aloud, jested, laughed.
There were, however, dinners that passed in terrible silence
and in speechless expectation of some outbreak. All the
boys and girls of the estate knew that the master was dining
in a good mood, and they packed the hall, expecting to
catch some dainties. Grandfather treated them lavishly,
because there was always prepared five times as much food
as was necessary. After dinner he at once lay down to
sleep. The flies were driven out from under the bar which
was let down over grandfather and tucked down under the
feather mattress. Soon a mighty snore gave evidence that
the master was sleeping a heroic sleep.

Kverybody went to his place to take a nap. Mazan and
Tanaychenok, having had a solid meal from the remnants of
the master's table, stretched themselves out on the floor of the
ante-chamber, near the very door into grandfather's sleeping-
room. They had already had a nap in the forenoon, which
did not keep them from falling asleep again ; but the stifling
air and burning sun which shone through the window woke
them up soon. The sleep and the heat had dried up their
throats. They wanted to cool their burning throats with the
master's iced home-brew, so these bold lazybones had recourse
to the following trick. Through the open door they reached
for grandfather's morning gown and sleeping-cap which lay
on a chair, near the door. Tanaychenok put on his master's
garment and seated himself on the porch, and Mazan ran
with a pitcher to the cellar, woke the stewardess, who, like
everybody else in the house, slept the sleep of the dead, and
asked in a hurry for some iced beer for the master who had
just risen. When the stewardess expressed her doubt about
the master's waking, Mazan pointed to Tanaychenok' s
figure that was sitting on the porch in morning gown and

Sergy£y Timofeevich Aksakov 225

night-cap. The pitcher was filled with beer, ice was put
into it, and Mazan ran speedily away with his booty. They
divided the contents in a brotherly way, put the morning
gown and night cap in the old place, and had to wait for a
whole hour before grandfather awoke.

The master awoke in even a better frame of mind than
upon the previous day, and his first words were: " Cold
beer ! ' ' The servants were frightened out of their wits.
Tanaychenok ran to the stewardess who saw immediately
that they had themselves drunk the first pitcher. She gave
the liquor, but followed the messenger to the porch where
the real master was now sitting in his morning gown. The
deception was made evident from her first words, and Mazan
and Tanaychenok, trembling with fear, fell down before the
master's feet, and what do you suppose grandfather did?
He laughed out loud, sent for Arisha and his daughters,
and laughing loud, told them the trick of his servants. The
poor fellows breathed more freely, and one of them even
smiled. Stepdn Mikhaylovich noticed that and came very
near getting angry. His brows began to be furrowed, but
his soul was so full of calm restful ness from the whole merry
day, that his forehead cleared off right away, and he only
looked angrily and said: " Well, God will forgive you this
time; but if it happens another time — " It was not neces-
sary to finish the sentence.

One can't help marvelling how it is that the servants had
dared to practise such a sharp trick upon their master who
was senselessly excitable and who during his excitement be-
came very cruel. I have frequently noticed in the course of
my life that the severer the master, the more daring were
the acts of their servants. That was not an exceptional case
with my grandfather. The same Vanka Mazan, having
once swept the sleeping room of Stepan Mikhdylovich and
just getting ready to make the bed, was so seduced by the
soft feather beds and pillows that he took it into his head to
pamper himself ; so he lay down upon the master's bed and
fell asleep. Grandfather found him sleeping in that bed,
and he only laughed out loud. It is true, he gave him a

VOL. II.— 15.

226 The Nineteenth Century

blow with his viburnum stick, but that was only for fun, to
have a good laugh at Mazan's fright.

He awoke about five o'clock in the afternoon, drank some
iced homebrew, and, in spite of the stifling heat, wanted to
drink some tea, believing that a hot drink would make the
heat more bearable. He went down to take a swim in the
cool Buguruslan which flowed under the very windows of
the house, and, upon returning, found his whole family wait-
ing for him at the same tea table, which was now placed in
the shade, with the same boiling teapot-samovdr, and with
the same Aksyutka. Having had his fill of his favourite
sweat-producing drink, with thick cream and its browned
skin, grandfather proposed to all a ride to the mill. Of
course, all gladly consented, and two of my aunts, Aleksan-
dra and Tatyana Stepanovna, took some fishing rods with
them, for they were very fond of angling. In a minute two
long waggons were hitched up : in one of them seated them-
selves grandfather and grandmother, placing between them
their only heir, the precious scion of their ancient noble
race. In the other sat my three aunts and the lad Niko-
lashka Ruzan, who was taken along, in order to dig for
worms in the dam and to put them on the ladies' hooks.

At the mill they brought a bench for grandmother, and
she seated herself in the shade of the mill barn, not far from
the mill trough, near which her younger daughters were
fishing. The elder daughter, Elizaveta Stepanovna, went,
as much to please her father as from her own love of farming,
with Stepan Mikhdylovich to look at the mill and the
grinding. The young boy now looked at the sister's an-
gling (he was not yet allowed to fish in deep places), now
played near his mother who did not turn her eyes away from
him, fearing that he might somehow roll into the water.

Both millstones were at work: in one of them they were
grinding wheat for the master's table; in the other, rye for
strangers; the stamping mill was crushing millet. Grand-
father was an expert in every part of the farm ; he knew well
the mechanism of the mill, and was explaining all its details
to his clever and attentive daughter. He saw at a glance

Sergyey Timofeevich Aksakov 227

all the imperfections in the gearing, or all the mistakes in
the position of the millstones. He ordered to let one down
half a notch, and the flour came out much finer, which
pleased the customer very much. In the other grinding
apparatus he discovered by the sound that one pin in the
wheel was beginning to be worn out. He ordered to shut
off the water, and miller Boltunenok jumped down to examine
the wheel. He said :

"You are right, Father Stepan Mikhaylovich! One pin
is a li'.tle worn off."

" Yes, yes, a little," replied grandfather without any dis-
pleasure. ' * If I had not come, the wheel would have broken
over night."

1 ' It is my fault, Stepan Mikhaylovich, I did not notice it."

' ' God forgive you ! L,et us have a new wheel, and get a
new pin made for the old wheel ; see to it that the new wheel
is not any wider, nor narrower than the rest, that is the main
point."

They brought a new wheel, which had been fitted before,
and put it in place; they oiled it, let in the water, — not all at
once, but by degrees (also by order of grandfather), — and the
millstone started to hum and grind, without interruption or
rattling, but smoothly and evenly. Then grandfather went
with his daughter to the stamping mill, took out of the stamp
a handful of crushed millet, blew the dust away from the
palm of his hand, and said to the customer, a neighbouring
Mordvinian: "Look here, neighbour Vasyukha! Don't
you see there is not a single unbroken grain ? If you let the
stamping go on, there will be less of flour." Vasyukha
tried it himself, and he convinced himself that grandfather
was telling the truth. He thanked him and bowed, that is,
he only shook his head, and ran away to shut off the water.

From there grandfather went with his pupil to the barn-
yard. He found everything in excellent order. There was
a large number of geese, ducks, turkeys, and hens, and an
old woman and her grandchild looked after them all. As a
special favour, grandfather let them both kiss his hand, and
he ordered that the fowlkeeper should receive, in addition

228 The Nineteenth Century

to the usual allowance, twenty pounds of wheat flour a
month for cakes. Stepdn Mikhaylovich returned in good
spirits to Anna Vasilevna, and he was satisfied with every-
thing: his daughter was clever, the mill was grinding well,
and the fowlkeeper Tatyana Gorozhana was looking well
after the fowls.

The heat had long subsided. The coolness from the water
increased the freshness of the approaching evening ; a long
cloud of dust rose along the road and came nearer to the
village; one could hear in it the bleating and lowing of the
farm animals ; the declining sun disappeared behind a steep
hill. Standing on the dam, Stepan looked with delight at
the broad pond which lay immovable like a mirror between
its low banks; fishes kept on playing in the water and leap-
ing up, but Stepan Mikhaylovich was not fond of fishing.

"Arisha, it is time to start home; the elder, I suppose, is
waiting for me, ' ' said he. Seeing him in a happy frame of
mind, the younger daughters began to beg him to let them
stay a little longer, saying that at sundown the fish bite
better, and that they would walk home in half an hour.
Grandfather consented and drove away in his waggon with
grandmother, while Elizaveta Stepanovn a seated herself with
her brother in the other waggon. Stepan Mikhaylovich was
not mistaken. The elder was waiting for him at the porch,
and he was not alone, but several peasants and their wives
were there also. The elder had seen the master, and he
knew that he was in good humour, and he had told some
peasants about it. Some of them who had some special re-
quest to make, such as exceeded any usual favour, made use
of the favourable opportunity, and they were all satisfied.
Grandfather gave some grain to a peasant who had not yet
paid off his old debt, though he could have done so; he per-
mitted another one to marry off his son, without waiting for
winter, and not to the girl which he had himself selected;
he permitted a guilty soldier's widow, whom he had ordered
to be driven out of the village, to live with her father, and
so forth.

More than that. They were treated each to a silver cup

Aleksyey Stepanovich Khomyakov 229

of strong home-made brandy, and this cup held more than a
beakerful. Grandfather gave short and clear orders to the
elder, and hastened to the supper which had been waiting
for him for some time. The supper table differed little from
dinner, and undoubtedly they ate a more solid meal, because
it was not so hot. After supper Stepan Mikhaylovich was
in the habit of sitting up another half an hour in his shirt
and cooling himself on the porch, after his family had been
excused to retire. This time he jested and laughed a little
longer than usual with his servants. He ordered Mazan
and Tanaychenok to have a boxing match, and he urged
them on in such a way that they belaboured each other not
in jest and tore each other's hair. Having had all the fun
he wanted, grandfather gave the command for them to come
to their senses and stop.

A short, marvellous summer night lay over all Nature.
The evening twilight had not yet all disappeared! The
azure of the sky grew darker from hour to hour, and from
hour to hour the stars shone more brilliantly. Louder and
louder became the voices and calls of the birds of the night,
as if they were getting nearer to man ! The mill sounded
nearer, and the stamping mill stamped in the damp night

mist Grandfather rose from his porch, made one or

two signs of the cross towards the starry heavens, and lay
down to sleep, in spite of the closeness of the room, on the
hot feather bed, and he ordered the servants to lower the
mosquito bar over him.

AleksySy Stepdnovich Khomyakov. (1804-1860.)

Khomyak6v was born in Moscow, where he passed his early child-
hood and youth, and there early came in contact with some of the
representative men of letters. In 1821 he was fired with enthusiasm
for the Greek struggle for independence, and ran away from home to
join the Greek patriots. He was, however, overtaken in time by his
father, and entered the Russian army, which he left in 1825. Soon
after began to appear his patriotic and religious songs that attracted
the public attention by their artistic perfection. He again joined the
army during the Turkish campaign of 1828. A few years later he
wrote two tragedies, but they were a complete failure. He then

230 The Nineteenth Century

devoted himself to prose, devoting all his energies to the cause of
Slavophilism and the propagation of Greek-Catholic theology.

Into English have been translated : Kiev, in C. T. Wilson's
Russian Lyrics, London, 1887 ; To My Children, in Short Poems
and Hymns, the latter mostly translations, by W. Palmer, Oxford,
1845 (reprinted in Russia and the English Church during the Last
Fifty Years, vol. i., London, 1895, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary
Society, No. 17, and in Khomyak6v's Complete Works, vol. iv.,
Moscow, 1900) ; The Island and To Russia, in Russia and the Eng-
lish Church, vol. i. (reprinted in Khomyak6v's Complete Works,
vol. iv.) ; The Eagle and several extracts, by H. Havelock, in The
Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 17 ; Russian Song, by N. H.
Dole, in Library of the World's Best Literature.

TO MY CHILDREN

Time was when I loved at still midnight to come,
My children, to see you asleep in your room ;
The cross, holy sign on your foreheads to trace,
And commend you in prayer to the love and the grace
Of our gracious and merciful God.

To keep gentle guard, and watch over your rest,
To think how your spirits were sinless and blest,
In hope to look forward to long happy years
Of blithe, merry youth, without sorrows or fears,
Oh, how sweet, how delicious it was!

But now, if I go, all is silence, all gloom;
None sleep in that crib, nothing breathes in that room;
The light that should burn at the image is gone:
Alas ! so it is, children now I have none,
And my heart, how it painfully throbs !

Dear children, at that same midnight do ye,
As I once prayed for you, now in turn pray for me;
Me who loved well the cross on your foreheads to trace;
Now commend me in turn to the mercy and grace
Of our gracious and merciful God.

— Transl. by Rev. W. Palmer, in Short Poems
and Hymns, Oxford, 1845.

Aleksyey Stepanovich Khomyakov 231
THE; EAGLE

High hast thou built thine eyrie,

Eagle of the Northern Slavs,

Wide hast thou spread thy wings,

High into heaven hast thou soared.

Fly ! But in the lofty deep of ether,

Where thy scarce-breathing breast

Is warmed by the passage of Freedom,
^Forget not thy younger kin !

Look to the Southern Steppe,

Look to the far-off West:

Many are there, where the Danube rages,

Where the Alpine clouds gather way,

In the mountain dells, in the dark Carpathians,

In the Balkan defiles wood-clothed,

In the clutches of faithless Teutons,
J[n the steely chains of the Tartar,

And thy brothers walk in fetters

Till thy voice shall sound in their ears,

Till thy wings thou shalt spread protecting

O'er their heads grown feeble with bondage.

Forget them not, Northern Eagle,

Send them thy resonant call

And in slavery's night console them
..With thy free and cheering light.

Feed them with thoughts elating,

With the hope of happier days,

And warm with loving kindness

These hearts whose blood is as thine.

Their hour shall come: their pinions

Wax strong, and their talons sharp,

They shall cry, full-grown, and shall sunder

At a breath the bonds that now bind.

— Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian
Literary Society, No. 17.

232 The Nineteenth Century

KIEV

Kiev ! upon the Dnieper built,
Thy lofty walls above me tower;

Like silver from the furnace pure,
The river gleams where dark hills lour.

All hail to thee, thou ancient town !

The cradle thou of Russia's fame!
And hail to thee, O Dnieper swift,

The bath, whence glorious Russia came !

In the calm air the songs resound,
The evening bells ring out their note ;

' ' Whence come ye, Pilgrim-Brothers, say,
Your homage who to God devote ? "

1 * I come from where the quiet Don
Glides forth, the beauty of our homes ";

"I come where stern Yenisey
In boundless waters proudly foams."

" My home is on the Kuxine shore."
' ' Mine in those distant realms is found

Where wide-extending ice-fields hold
The sea within their rigid bound."

" Savage the view of Altay's ridge,

Eternal is the snowy glare ;
My native town time-honoured Pskov,

My own dear home is there, is there."

" I come from cold Ladoga's Lake" ;

" I from the Neva's soft blue face " ;
" I come from Kama's flowing stream " ;

" And I from Moscow's fond embrace."

All hail, Kiev! most wondrous town,
With turbid stream which Dnieper laves!

Grander than seats imperial are
The silent shadows of thy caves.

Aleksyey Stepanovich Khomyakov 233

We know in night of times gone by,

In darkness of antiquity,
The brightly shining Eastern sun

Glowed ever, Russia, over thee.

And now, from strange, and distant, lands,
From far-off steppes, — from unknown homes, —

From deepest rivers of the North, —
A crowd of praying children comes.

In loving company well met,

We gather in thy sanctuary;
Where are thy sons, Volhynia ?

Galich, where is thy progeny ?

Woe ! woe ! as though by savage fires,

They all by Poles consumed are;
By noisy banquetings deceived,

They yield to festive charm and glare.

Captives to sword and treachery,
They are ensnared by falsehood's flame;

They move beneath a foreign flag,
They bow unto a stranger's name.

Awake, Kiev! again arise,

Upon thy fallen children call,
On them let father's tenderness,

With voice of supplication, fall.

Thy sons, erst ravished from thy breast,

Will listen to thy soothing cry;
Will tear asunder cunning chain,

The foreign flag will pass it by;

Will come again, as in past days,
Will in thy love themselves disport,

234 The Nineteenth Century

Will lay their faces in thy lap,

Will bring their vessels to thy port.

And all around their native flag

Thy strong commands they will await;

Their life's full spirit, — spirit's life, —
Will be by thee regenerate !

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

F6dor Iv£novich Tytitchev. (1803-1873.)

Born almost at the same time with Pushkin, Tyutchev continued
the tradition of Pushkin's school until the seventies. When only
fourteen years of age, he was chosen a member of the Society of
Lovers of Russian Literature for his masterly translation of poems
from Horace. In 1823 he was attached to the Russian embassy at
Munich ; then, after serving in various capacities, he was made
president of the Commission of Foreign Censorship, which office he
held to his death. Though frequently contributing to the periodicals,
Tyutchev remained unknown to the middle of the century, when
Nekrdsov and Turge"nev rediscovered him. His verses are very melo-
dious and tunable, but rather narrow of scope.

In English translation are to be found : Scarce cooled from midday
heat and The Spring-Storm, by John Pollen, in Rhymes from the
Russian, London, 1891 ; I suffer still from anguished longing, by A.
C. Coolidge, in Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895, and The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 15 ; Spring Waters, Sunrise, Evening,
The Leaves, by N. H. Dole, in the Library of the World's Best
Literature. A few poems, translated by N. H. Dole, are given in G.
Schirmer's Octavo Choruses for Mixed Voices, New York ; the Sun-
rise, by Dole, was also given in the Ladysmith Leader and Welling-
ton Extension News, Nov. 6, 1901.

Scarce cooled from midday heat

Sparkles the summer night;
O'er sinful earth a threatening cloud

Trembles with lightnings bright.
Heaven's sleepy eyelids ope,

And through its distant gleam,
The threatening orbs of One above

O'er earth to kindle seem.
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev 235

THE SPRING-STORM

I love the storm in early May,

When spring's first maiden thunder peals,
And, laughing in its frolic play,

Across the blue sky softly steals.

The little rumblings roll and reel ;

The rain-shower glistens; flies the dust;
The rain-drop pearls in clusters cling,

And golden gleams the fields encrust.

From hillside headlong speeds the rill,

In groves the birds keep twittering,
And chattering wood and murmuring hill

Echo with joy the thundering.
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

I suffer still from anguished longing,
For towards thee still my spirit strives.

In a twilight of memories thronging
E'en now thine image still survives.

Thine image sweet, forgotten never,

Before me always, near and far,
Unreachable, unchanging ever

As in the sky of night, a star.

— Transl. by A. C. Coolidge.

SUNRISE

In solemn calm the Orient waits,
A deep, mysterious silence keeping;
No sign to tell if Day be sleeping

Or if he halt before her gates.

Now, now the mountain tops grow white,
The mists the vales below still cumber,

236 The Nineteenth Century

Still towns and peaceful hamlets slumber —
But heavenward turn your eager sight !

Behold it ! Now a gleam awakes
And like young Passion's timid blushes
The red glow brighter, rosier flushes,

Then high above the zenith breaks!

A moment passes: swift the light
Throughout the Ether's vast dominions
Sweeps onward on her glittering pinions
And conquers all the hosts of Night.

— Transl. by N. H. Dole, in Schirmer's
Octavo Choruses, No. 623.

Aieksandr Ivdnovich Gertsen (Herzen).
(1812-1870.)

Gertsen was the son of a rich landed proprietor by the name of
Ydkovlev, and of a German mother (Herzen). He was brought up
in the house of his father, where he early acquired several languages
and a love for the German literature of the period, especially for
Schiller and Goethe. He later devoted himself entirely to the exact
sciences and graduated in 1833 from the University of Moscow with a
silver medal for his thesis, The Historical Evolution of the System
of Copernicus. While attending the university, GeVtsen was the soul
of one of those circles of the thirties where all kinds of philosophical
and social themes were discussed with great wit and enthusiasm. He
later served in several government capacities, chiefly in St. Peters-
burg, where he continued to be a centre around which gathered all
the progressive forces of the younger generations. In 1844 the two
extreme literary camps completely severed their connections : the
Slavophiles rallied around Khomyak6v and the Aksdkovs, while the
Westerners gathered around Ge*rtsen and OgareV. In 1847 Ge"rtsen
went abroad never to return. In the last few years of his residence
in St. Petersburg he had evinced great literary talent : his best known
stories are The Thieving Magpie and Who is to be Blamed? During
his long residence abroad he published the famous Bell, in which
periodical he carried on a relentless propaganda for constitutional-
ism in Russia. In From the Other Shore (originally published in
German) he expressed his disenchantment with the West, and in
Past and Reflections he has given a series of vivid pictures of his

Aleksandr Ivanovich Gertsen 237

times. His influence as a political agitator and as a man of letters
may be traced through several generations in Russia.

Ge'rtseu wrote two of his works in English : My Exile in Siberia^
2 vols., London, 1855, and The Russian People and Their Socialism^
A Letter to M.Jules Michelet, Brantwood, 1855.

SLAVOPHILES AND PANSLAVISM

Side by side with our circle were our opponents, nos amis
les ennemis, or, more correctly, nos ennemis les amis, — the
Moscow Slavophiles.

The war between us has long been ended, and we have
shaken each others hands; but in the beginning of the forties
we had to meet as enemies, — so a consistent adherence to
our principles demanded. We might have avoided quarrel-
ling with them for their childish adoration of the childish
period of our history; but accepting their Orthodoxy at full
value, and seeing their ecclesiastic intolerance in both direc-
tions,— in the direction of science and in the direction of the
schism, — we had to assume a hostile attitude towards them.
We saw in their doctrine a new oil with which to anoint the
Tsar, a new chain imposed upon thought, a new subordina-
tion of conscience to the servile Byzantine Church.

It is the Slavophiles' fault that for a long time we did not
understand the Russian people, or their history : their icono-
graphic ideals and incense smoke have hindered our discern-
ing the national life and the foundations of the village
commune.

The Orthodoxy of the Slavophiles, their historical patriot-
ism and exaggerated, irritating feeling of nationality were
provoked by extremes in the other direction. The import-
ance of their view, its truth and essential part are not in
Orthodoxy and not in national exclusiveness, but in those
elements of Russian life which they have discovered beneath
the fertiliser of the artificial civilisation.

The idea of nationality is in itself a conservative idea,
based on the exclusiveness of its rights and the clannishness
of its associations; there are in it the Judaic conception of
the superiority of race, and the aristocratic pretensions of

238 The Nineteenth Century

purity of blood and entailment. Nationality, as a banner,
as a battle-cry, only then is surrounded by a revolutionary
aureole when the nation fights for independence, when it
throws off a foreign yoke. It is for this reason that national
sentiments, with all their exaggerations, are full of poetry
in Italy and in Poland, and at the same time banal in Ger-
many.

It would be even more ridiculous than with the Germans
to prove our nationality, for even those do not doubt it who
curse us. They hate us from fear, but do not deny us, as
Metternich denied Italy. We ought to have opposed our
nationality to our Germanised government and to its rene-
gades. This domestic war could not be raised to an epos.
The appearance of the Slavophiles as a school and as a
separate doctrine was quite proper; but if they had found no
other flag than the Orthodox banner, and no other ideal
than the Domostr6y and the extremely Russian, but exceed-
ingly harsh, period before Peter, they would have passed for
a curious party of transmogrified odd people who belonged to
another time. The strength and the future of Slavophilism
lay in another direction. It may be that their treasure was
really hid in church vessels of ancient workmanship, but its
value was neither in the vessel, nor in the form. They did
not separate them at first.

To the historical recollections proper were added the
memories of all the related nations. Our Slavophiles as-
sumed the sympathy for the Western Panslavism to be
identical in fact and in direction, forgetting that there the
exclusive nationalism was at the same time the lament of a
people that was oppressed by a foreign yoke. Western
Panslavism was, upon its appearance, regarded by the Aus-
trian government as a conservative step. It was evolved
during the sad epoch of the Vienna Congress. It was, in
general, the time of all kinds of resurrections and rehabilita-
tions, the time of all kinds of Lazaruses, — fresh and stinking
ones. The Bohemian Panslavism arose by the side of the
Deutschthum, which was marching to the resurrection of the
happy days of Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufens. The gov-

Aleksandr Ivanovich Gertsen 239

ernments hailed this new tendency, and at first encouraged
the development of international hatred ; the masses again
clung to their tribal interrelation, of which the knot was being
drawn tighter, and again were departing from the common
demands for the improvement of their existence; borders
became ever more impassable, and the tie and sympathy
between nations were loosened. It goes without saying
that only weak, apathetic nations were allowed to awaken,
and that only so long as their activities were limited to
scientific, archeographic labours and etymological quarrels.
In Milan and in Poland, where nationality would not rest at
grammar, it was held down with spiked hands.

The Bohemian Panslavism incited the Slavic sympathies
in Russia.

Slavism, or Russism, not as a theory, not as a doctrine,
but as an offended national feeling, as an indistinct recollec-
tion and correct instinct, as a resistance to an exclusively
foreign influence, has existed since the shearing of the first
beard by Peter the Great.

The resistance to the St. Petersburg terrorism of education
has never stopped : tortured and quartered and hung out on
the spikes of the Kremlin, to be shot at by Me*nshikov and
the other royal jesters in the shape of savage hunters,
poisoned in the ravelin of the St. Petersburg fortress, in the
shape of Tsarevich Alexis, it appeared as the party of the
Dolgorukis during the reign of Peter II., as the hatred of
the Germans under Biron, as PugacheV under Catherine II.,
as Catherine II. herself, an Orthodox German, under the
Prussian Holsteinian Peter III., as Elizabeth, who leaned
on the Slavophiles of her day, in order to seat herself on the
throne (the people of Moscow were waiting for all the Ger-
mans to be killed at her coronation).

All the dissenters are Slavophiles.

All the white and black clergy are Slavophiles of a differ-
ent sort.

The soldiers who demanded the removal of Barclay de
Tolly for his foreign name were the predecessors of Khom-
yakov and his friends.

240 The Nineteenth Century

The war of 1812 developed a strong feeling of national
consciousness and patriotism, but the patriotism of 1812 had
no Orthodox, Slavic character. We see it in Karamzin and
Pushkin, and in Emperor Alexander himself. It was prac-
tically an expression of that instinct of force which all
mighty nations feel when they are attacked by a foreign
people; and then it was a solemn feeling of victory, a proud
consciousness of a successful defence. But that theory was
weak; in order to love Russian history, the patriots trans-
formed it according to European models; they in general
translated the Graeco-Roman patriotism from French into
Russian, and did not go beyond the verse

Pour un cceur bien n£, que la patrie est chere !

It is true, Shishkov even then raved of reestablishing the
ancient style, but his influence was limited. The real popu-
lar diction was used only by the Frenchified Count Rostop-
chin in his proclamations and appeals.

In measure as the war was being forgotten, this patriotism
cooled down and finally deteriorated, on the one hand, into
a low, cynical flattery of The Northern Bee, on the other, into
the trivial patriotism of Zag6skin,x who called Shuya,8
Manchester and Shebuyev, a Raphael, and who boasted
of the bayonets and the expanse from the ice of Tornea to
the Tauric Mountains

In the reign of Nicholas the patriotism was transformed
into something knout-like and official, especially in St.
Petersburg, where this uncouth tendency ended, according
to the cosmopolitan character of the city, in the invention of
a national hymn from Sebastian Bach, and, by Prok6pi
Lyapunov, from Schiller.

To cut loose from Europe, from enlightenment, and from
revolution, which kept him in terror ever since the i4th of
December, Nicholas, on his side, raised the banner of Ortho-

1 Russian novelist of the beginning of the century.

2 Manufacturing town in the Government of Vladimir ; famous for
its raw sheepskins.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Gertsen 241

doxy, autocracy, and nationality, which was worked out in
the manner of a Prussian standard, and supported by any
thing and everything: by the uncouth novels of Zagoskin,
the uncouth iconography, the uncouth architecture, by Uva-'
rov, by the persecution of the Uniates, and by The hand
of the Almighty has saved the fatherland.^

The meeting of the Moscow Slavophiles with the Peters-
burgian Slavophilism of Nicholas was a great misfortune for
them. Nicholas took refuge in nationality and Orthodoxy
from revolutionary ideas. There was nothing in common
between them but words. Their extremes and insipidities
were all unselfishly insipid, without any relation whatsoever
to the Third Division, — which, of course, did not in the
least hinder their insipidities from being exceedingly insipid.

Thus, for instance, there passed through Moscow, at the
end of the thirties, the Panslavist Gaj, who later played
some indefinite r61e as a Croatian agitator and at the same
time was near to Ban Jelacic. Muscovites believe in foreign-
ers in general; Gaj was more than a foreigner, and more
than one of their own, — he was both. He, consequently,
had no difficulty in engaging the sympathy of our Slavs for
the fate of their suffering Orthodox brothers in Dalmatia
and Croatia; an enormous subscription was taken up in a
few days, and in addition to that Gaj was given a dinner in
the name of all the Servian and Ruthenian sympathies. At
the dinner one of the Slavophiles, who by his voice and by
his profession was more gentle than the rest, a man of red
Orthodoxy, who, no doubt, was heated by the toasts for the
Montenegrin ruler, and for all kinds of great Bosnians,
Bohemians, and Slovaks, improvised a poem in which oc-
curred the following not quite Christian expression:

"I shall drink the blood of Magyars and of Germans."

All who were still in their senses heard this phrase in dis-
gust. Fortunately the witty statistician Andr6sov saved the
bloodthirsty bard: he jumped up from his chair, grabbed a

1 A line in Ozerov's tragedy Dimitri Donskdy (see vol. i., p. 418).

VOL. II.— 16.

242 The Nineteenth Century

fruit knife, and said: " Gentlemen, pardon me, I shall leave
you for a moment; it has just occurred to me that my land-
lord, the old piano-tuner Diez, is a German; I '11 just run
down to cut his throat, and I '11 be back in a trice."
A thunderous laughter drowned the indignation.

Nikolay Plat6novich Ogarev. (1813-1877.)

OgareV was born in the Government of Pe"nza, in the estate of his
father, where he was educated till his fourteenth year. He then at-
tended the Moscow University, but before he finished his course he
was arrested for singing some revolutionary songs, and was exiled to
his father's estate. He later passed his life abroad, aiding Herzen in his
revolutionary propaganda. Though mainly known as a propagand-
ist, he excels even more as a poet. His tender verses remind of
Le"rmontov, with whom he has much in common. Among his best
poems are his Monologues, The Village Watchman, The Sea of Life.

In C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics are given : Nottumo, The Old
House, The Village Watchman, The Child, Hidden Love, and
Death; in Free Russia: by Charlotte Sidgwick, in vol. xi., No. n,
To Iskander, in vol. xii., Nos. 6-7, Summer ; by J. B. Lewis, in vol.
xii., Nos. 8-10, The Commandment ; by Mary Grace Walker, in vol.
xii., No. 3, A Prayer.

TO ISKANDER1

In days of my boyhood so gentle and tender,
In days of my passionate youth in its splendour,
Through manhood, while slowly to age I surrender, —
Through all of my life and within my endeavour,
One word in my ears there is ringing for ever—
"Liberty! Liberty!"

Tormented by slavery, sad and dejected,
In alien lands all unknown and rejected,
I live but to utter that name long neglected;
Across the wide seas and the countries that sever,
One word to my motherland calling for ever —
"Liberty! Liberty!"

1 Pseudonym of Herzen ; see p. 236.

Nikolay Platonovich Ogarev 243

It came o'er the waves to the place of my wailing,
'Mid silence, at midnight, — a rumour assailing
My senses, through darkness and tempest prevailing —
I hear it ! my heart can abandon it never,
That voice from my country that sounds on for ever —
" Liberty! Liberty!"

My heart, long accustomed to doubt in its yearning,
Sprang up as it throbbed with new ecstasy burning,
Like a bird from its cage to the wide world returning;
It sings a farewell to its prison for ever,
While solemn and clear rings the note of endeavour —
" Liberty! Liberty!"

In the dreams I behold, with the snows that surround him,
The peasant, long-bearded, — the glad news has found him, —
He shakes from his great limbs the fetters that bound him, —
And speaks the glad word, the unchanging for ever
Eternal, — the future can silence it never —
"Liberty! Liberty!"

But if there should chance, — if there came any reason, —
To fear for that Liberty, let her in season
Cry out, and I fly to encounter the treason ;
And if from that uttermost struggle I never
Return, I can call with the cry " Live for ever,
4 'Liberty! Liberty!"

It may be I die with the strangers around me,
Yet hope and belief in the future have found me,
O comrade ! ere Death in his shackles has bound me;
That name do thou whisper, to last me for ever,
That name — of our love, of our faith and endeavour —
Liberty! Liberty!"

— Transl. by Charlotte Sidgwick in Free
Russia, vol. xi., No. u.

244 The Nineteenth Century

MONOLOGUES

What I wish? What? Oh, there are so many

wishes, and their host is so eager for a sally, that at times it
seems that by their inward agitation my brain will burn and

my breast will burst. What I wish ? Everything, in

all its fulness! I thirst to know, I yearn for deeds, I still
desire to love with senseless pining, I want to feel the whole
thrill of life!

I feel in secret all the wishes vain, and life is niggardly,
and inwardly I am feeble, — my striving will be silent and
unanswered, and in endeavours will my strength be wasted.
I seem unto myself, oppressed by suffering, a kind of misera-
ble, puny fool, a creature lost in endless space, wearing away
in empty fermentation.

It is not given to us to embrace at once the spirit of eter-
nity, and the cup of life we quaff in swallows; what we have
drunk we most regret, — the empty bottom shows more and
more. With every day the soul feels heavier the aging, and
it is more painful to remember, and more terrible to wish,
and to live appears bold recklessness, — but the pulse cannot
stop beating. And I live on in hopeless striving, and take
upon myself the cross of life, and all the fervour of my soul
I bear in eager motion, grasping and losing moments after
moments

And I wish all! What? Oh, there are so many

wishes, and their host is so eager for a sally, that at times it
seems that by their inward agitation my brain will burn and
my breast will burst.

THE VILLAGE WATCHMAN

The night is dark, and clouds abound,
Appears the white snow everywhere ;

The crackling frost pervades the ground,
And frigid is the atmosphere.

On either side the long, broad street
The peasants' cottages are seen ;

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 245

The solitary watchman's feet
Are heard, as he moves on between.

Cold is he now; the hollow gale

Fills with violent blast the air;
The frost has touched his visage pale,

And whitened all his beard and hair.

Joy has fled from his gloomy brow,

He finds it hard to be alone ;
Through the dark night, and blinding snow,

His song resounds with mournful tone.

By moonless nights he paces late,
Watching until the morn comes round;

His hammer upon the iron plate
Gives out a dreary, dismal sound.

And swaying ever to any fro,
The board prolongs its dreadful moan ;

The heart dies down with feelings low,
And sorrow weighs it, lorn and lone.

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolst6y.
(1817-1875.)

Count Tolst6y's youth was passed in the estate of his uncle in the
Government of Chernigov. He was early attached to the Russian
legation at Frankfurt, and travelled extensively in Germany, France,
and Switzerland. Upon his return to Russia, he settled in St. Peters-
burg and devoted himself to literature. He at first wrote a series of
lyrics and some ballads which are perfect in technique but lack ani-
mation. After the Crimean War he was attached to the Court, and
his renewed literary activity bore better fruits : the result of his care-
ful historical investigations was the novel Prince Serebryany and the
tragedy The Death of Ivan the Terrible. There is no historical novel
in Russian that surpasses Prince Serebryany in its artistic setting and
scrupulous adherence to facts. Tolstdy also wrote two other trage-
dies that form a trilogy with The Death of Ivan the Terrible, but

246 The Nineteenth Century

they are weaker in execution. Towards the end of his life he wrote
a number of ballads in the style of the ancient Bylinas, of which
Alesha Popdvich is the best.

Prince Serebryany has been translated three times : Prince Sere-
brenni, translated by Princess Galitzine, 2 vols., London, 1874 ; Prince
Serbryani, an Historical Novel of the Times of Ivdn the Terrible and
of the Conquest of Siberia, by Jeremiah Curtin, New York and Lon-
don, [1892] ; The Terrible Czar, translated by Capt. H. C. Filmore,
London, 1892 (and 1893, 1895). The following poems are to be found
in English translation : Believe it not, The Scolding, in John Pollen's
Rhymes from the Russian ; Speys the Dwarf, The Sinner, in C. T.
Wilson's Russian Lyrics ; in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No.
21, by F. P. Marchant, Prince Mikhailo Repnin and Dearest Country,
No. 23, by N. Shishkoff, You know I like to seek, Into my soul so full
of vain illusions, Where planets roll, and Autumn, No. 25, by H.
Havelock, The Kurgan; in Free Russia, by Elizabeth Gibson, in
vol. xi., No. 3, A Prayer and The Convicts, in Nos. 6 and 7, The
Sorrows of Ages Departed ; in the Library of the World's Best Liter-
ature, reprint of J. Pollen's Believe it not, and Renewal, by Prince
Wolkonsky.

FROM "PRINCE SEREBRYANY"

Tsar Ivdn Vasilevich was praying. The perspiration was
already rolling down his face; the bloody marks, imprinted
upon his high forehead by former prostrations, were now
more clearly defined by the new devotion. Suddenly, a
rustling sound in the room caused him to turn around. He
saw his nurse Onufrevna.

His nurse was an old woman. She had been taken to the
Upper Apartments by Grand Prince Vasfli Ivdnovich of
blessed memory, she had served under Elena Glmski. loann
was borne in her arms, and in her arms did the dying father,
bless him. Thejr said of Onufrevna that much was known
to her which nobody even suspected. During the minority
of the Tsar, the Glmskis had been afraid of her; the Shuyskis
and Byelskis tried in every way to gain her favour.

Onufrevna discovered many hidden things through divina-
tion, and she was never mistaken. She predicted of Prince
Telepnev during his very greatness, — loann was then only
four years old, — that he would die of starvation. And so it

Count Aleksyey Konstantfnovich Tolstoy 247

happened. Many jrears had passed since then, but that pre-
diction was still fresh in the memory of old men.

It was now almost the tenth decade that Onufrevna was
ending. She was bent nearly double; the skin of her face
was so wrinkled that it resembled tree bark, and as moss
grows out on old bark, so grey tufts of hair burst out of her
chin. She had long ago lost her teeth; her eyes, it seemed,
could not see; her head shook convulsively.

Onufrevna bent with her bony hand on a staff. She
looked at lodnn for a long time, drawing in her sered lips,
as if she were chewing or muttering something.

11 Well?" at last said the nurse with a dull, trembling
voice, * ' are you praying, father ? Pray, pray, Ivan Vasile-
vich ! It will take a great deal of praying to get forgiveness.
If you had only your old sins upon your soul ! God is mer-
ciful, and He might have forgiven you ! But you add every
day a new sin, and many a day even two or three of them."

" Hush, Onufrevna," said the Tsar, rising, " you do not
know what you are saying! "

1 * I do not know what I am saying ! Have I grown in-
sane,— what? "

And the lifeless eyes of the old woman suddenly sparkled.

' ' What have you been doing at the table to-day ?

Why did you poison the boyar? You thought I did not
know it ! Well ? Why do you frown ? Wait, when your
hour of death will strike, just wait! Your sins will stick to
you, like a thousand thousand puds; they will pull you
down to the bottom of hell. And the devils will run up
and will catch you on their hooks ! ' '

The old woman again began to chew.

The fervent prayer had prepared the Tsar for pious
thoughts. His irritable imagination had more than once
presented to him a picture of the future chastisement, but
his power of will vanquished the terror of the torments be-
yond the grave. lodnn assured himself that this fear and
his bites of conscience were provoked in him by the fiend of
the human race, in order to distract the anointed of God
from his high purposes. The Tsar opposed prayer to the

248 The Nineteenth Century

cunning of the devil ; but he often succumbed to the cruel
onrush of his imagination. Then despair took possession
of him as with iron claws. The unrighteousness of his acts
appeared in all its nakedness, and the abyss of hell yawned
terribly before him. But that lasted only a short time,
loann immediately regretted his pusillanimity. In anger at
himself and at the spirit of darkness, he, to spite hell and to
oppose his conscience, again started upon his work of blood
and villainy, and never did his cruelty reach such dimensions
as after an involuntary exhaustion.

Now the thought of hell, illuminated by the approaching
storm and the prophetic voice of Onufrevna, stirred him
through and through with a feverish chill. He seated him-
self upon the bed. His teeth chattered against each other.

4 'Well, father?" said Onufrevna, softening her voice.
11 What is the matter with you ? Are you ill ? That 's it,
you are ill! I have given you a good fright! But you
need n't be frightened, father. Only repent, and stop sin-
ning. I, too, am praying for you, day and night, and now
I shall pray more than ever. Why should n't I ? I had
rather forfeit heaven, if I could gain forgiveness for you."

loann looked at his nurse, — she seemed to be smiling, but
her stern face was not lit up by a smile that was reassuring.

" Thank you, Onufrevna, thank you. I am feeling easier;
go, the Lord be with you ! ' '

1 ' Yes, yes, easier ! Your terror leaves you the moment
you are consoled ! And you at once drive me away ! The
Ix>rd be with me, you say ! But you, father, had better not
count too much upon God's long-suffering. Even God's
patience will give way in your case. Beware, He will re-
nounce you, and Satan will rejoice and — plump! will enter
into you. There, you have begun to shake again ! It will
not hurt you to drink a glass of mulled honey. Drink a
glass, father! Your father, the kingdom of heaven be his,
used to drink mulled honey at night! And your mother,
God grant her soul rest, was fond of mulled honey. And it
was with mulled honey that the accursed Shuyskis poisoned
her."

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 249

The old woman became absent-minded. Her eyes were
dimmed; she again began to chew, all the time shaking her
head.

Suddenly something knocked at the window. Ivan Vasi-
levich shuddered.

The old woman made the sign of the cross with her trem-
bling hand.

"Just see," she said, " how it is raining! And it is be-
ginning to lighten! And there is also thunder, father; God
have mercy upon us ! "

The storm increased in fury, and soon the sky was dis-
turbed by uninterrupted peals of thunder and a continuous
sheet of lightning.

lodnn shuddered at every thunderclap.

" What a chill you have, father! Wait a moment, I '11
have them make you some mulled honey."

" It is not necessary, Ontifrevna, I am well."

' ' Well ! Why, your face does not show it ! You had
better lie down on your bed and cover yourself with a quilt.
What a bed you have here ! Nothing but boards. What a
queer notion ! Is that proper for a Tsar ? That is all right
for a monk, but you are not a monk ! ' '

lodnn did not answer. He was intent on listening to
something.

" Ontifrevna," he suddenly said in fright, " who is walk-
ing there in the corridor ? I hear somebody's steps! "

"Christ be with you, father! Who should be walking
now ? It is your imagination. ' '

1 ' No, there is someone walking there ! Somebody is
coming here ! Go and look, Ontifrevna ! ' '

The old woman opened the door. A cold wind burst into
the room. Beyond the door appeared Malytita.

" Who is that ? " asked the Tsar, leaping up.

" Your red dog, father," answered the nurse, casting an
angry glance at Malyuta, ' ' Grfshka Skurdtov. How the
accursed one has frightened me ! "

f< Lukyanych !" said the Tsar, made happy by the arrival of
his favourite, ' ' you are welcome ; where do you come from ? ' '

250 The Nineteenth Century

' ' From the prison, sir. I was at the inquest, and I have
brought the keys."

Malyuta bowed low to the Tsar and looked askance at the
nurse.

' ' The keys ! ' ' grumbled the old woman. ' ' They will flog
you in the other world with red hot keys, you Satan ! Upon
my word, you are Satan ! Your very face is that of a devil !
Though somebody else may escape the eternal fire, you
won't. You, Grishka, will be licking hot pans for all your
calumnies! You, accursed one, will be boiling in pitch, re-
member my word ! ' '

Lightning illuminated the threatening woman, and she
was terrible with her uplifted staff and her sparkling eyes.

Malyuta himself felt a little uncomfortable; but lodnn was
emboldened by the presence of his favourite.

" Pay no attention to her, Lukydnych," he said, " know
what you are about, and don't listen to women's babble.
But you, old fool, go away and leave us! "

Ontifrevna's eyes sparkled once more.

1 ' Old fool ? ' ' she repeated. ' ' You will think of me in the
next world ! All your companions, Vdnya, will receive their
retribution, and they will receive it even in this world, every
one of them, Gryazn6y, Basmdnov, and Vydzemski. Each
of them will receive his due, but this one," she continued,
pointing with her staff at Malyuta, " this one will not re-
ceive his due : there is no adequate punishment for him in
this world; his punishment is in the lowermost pit of hell;
there a place is ready for him, and the devils are waiting for
him and rejoicing! And there is a place there for you, too,
Vdnya, — a big, warm place! "

The old woman went out, shuffling her feet and making
a noise with her staff.

loann was pale. Malyuta did not speak a word. The
silence lasted quite a while.

"Well, Lukydnych?" said the Tsar at last, "do the
Kolychevs confess ? ' '

" Not yet, sir. But they will, or they won't get off so
easily from me?"

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 251

loann asked for the details of the inquest. The conversa-
tion about the Kolychevs gave another direction to his
thoughts. It appeared to him that he might be able to fall
asleep. He sent Malyuta away, lay down upon his bed, and
lost consciousness.

He was awakened as if by a sudden push. The room was
weakly lighted by the lamps before the images. A moon-
beam passed through the low window and glittered on the
painted flourishes of the couch. A cricket chirped behind
the couch. A mouse nibbled somewhere at the wood.

Ivan Vasilevich was again terrified amidst this silence.

Suddenly it seemed to him as though the floor was being
raised and a poisoned boyar looked out from underneath.

Such visions were common occurrences with loann. He
ascribed them to the persecutions of the devil. To get rid
of the apparition, he made the sign of the cross.

But the apparition did not disappear, as it did formerly.

The dead boyar kept on looking at him awry. The eyes
of the old man bulged out, and his face was as blue as then,
at dinner, when he drank the cup sent him by loann.

" That 's again the devil's incitement ! " thought the Tsar.
" But I will not submit to the power of Satan, and I will
crush the cunning of the devil. Let God arise, and may
His foes be dispersed! "

The dead man slowly rose from the floor and came nearer
to loann.

The Tsar wanted to cry out, but he could not. There
was a terrible din in his ears.

The dead man bowed before the Tsar.

1 ' Hail, Ivdn!" spoke a hollow, unearthly voice. "I
greet you, who have destroyed an innocent man."

These words re-echoed in the very depth of loann's soul.
He did not know whether he heard them from the appari-
tion, or whether his own thought found expression in sounds
tangible to the ear.

Then another board was raised ; underneath appeared the
face of Danila Adashev who had been executed by loann
four years before.

252 The Nineteenth Century

Adashev, too, rose from the floor, bowed to the Tsar, and
said:

' ' Hail, Ivan ! I greet you who have executed an innocent
man!"

After Addshev there appeared the boyar's wife Maria who
had been executed together with her children. She rose
from the floor, with her five sons. They all bowed to the
Tsar, and all said:

"Hail, Ivdn! I great you!"

Then appeared Prince Kurlydtev, Prince Obolenski,
Nikita Sheremetev, and other persons who had been killed
or executed by lodnn.

The room was filled with dead people. They all bowed
low to the Tsar, and all said :

" Hail, hail, Ivan! I greet you! "

And there rose monks, hermits, nuns, all in black gar-
ments, all pale and blood-covered.

And there appeared warriors who had been at Kazdn with
the Tsar. Upon them gaped terrible wounds, that were not
gained in battle, but were inflicted by the executioner.

And there appeared maidens in torn garments, and young
women with suckling babes. The children stretched their
bloody hands to lodnn and lisped:

" Hail, hail, Ivan, who have made us innocent ones to
perish!"

The room was ever more filled with apparitions. The
Tsar could no longer distinguish his imagination from
reality. The words of the apparitions were repeated in
hundred-fold echoes, while the prayers for the dead and the
singing of the vigils resounded above lodnn* s ears. His hair
stood on end.

" In the name of the living God," he spoke, " if you are
evil spirits sent by the power of the devil, — perish ! If you
are, in truth, the souls of those I have executed, — wait for
the terrible judgment of the Lord ! God will judge us all ! "

The dead people moaned and circled around loann, like
autumn leaves driven by the whirlwind. The singing of
the vigils sounded more pitifully, the rain again beat against

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 253

the window, and amidst the howl of the wind, the Tsar
thought he heard the sound of trumpets and a voice calling :

" Ivan, Ivdn, to the judgment, to the judgment! "

The Tsar cried out aloud. The sleeping guards ran from
the adjoining apartments into the bedroom.

" Rise," cried the Tsar, " all who are asleep now! The
last day has come ! The last hour has come ! Let us to the
church, all after me ! ' '

The courtiers bestirred themselves. The large bell was
rung. The oprichniks who had j ust fallen asleep heard the
familiar sound, and they jumped up from their couches and
hastened to dress themselves.

Many were feasting at the house of Vydzemski. They
were sitting at the wine cups and singing drinking songs.
When they heard the sound of the bell, they jumped up
from their seats, donned black cloaks over their rich gar-
ments, and covered their heads with high hoods. The
whole palace quarter came into motion. The church of the
Mother of God was brilliantly illuminated. The excited in-
habitants rushed to their gates and saw a multitude of lights
that wandered in the palace from room to room. Then the
lights formed a long chain, and the procession meandered
along the outward corridors that connected the palace with
the temple of God.

All the oprlchniks, who were dressed in the identical black
cloaks and hoods, carried pitch torches. Their light was
wonderfully reflected upon the carved pillars and wall deco-
rations. The wind scattered the cloaks, and the moonlight
and the light of the torches was reflected on the cloth, the
pearls, and the costly stones. The Tsar marched in front,
dressed as a monk, and he beat his breast and called out,
sobbing aloud:

' ' Lord, have mercy on me, sinful man ! Have mercy on
me, stinking dog ! Have mercy on my evil head ! Pacify,
O Lord, the souls of those who have been innocently killed
by me ! ' '

Before the doors of the temple loann fell down exhausted.
The torches illuminated an old woman that was sitting on

254 The Nineteenth Century

the steps. She stretched out her trembling hand to the
Tsar.

" Rise, father! " said Onufrevna. " I will help you. I
have been waiting for you for a long while. Come, Vanya,
let us pray together! "

Two oprichniks held up the Tsar under his arms. He
entered the church.

New processions, also in black cloaks, also in high hoods,
were hastening over the streets with lighted torches. The
doors of the temple swallowed ever new oprichniks, and the
gigantic forms of the saints looked at them with disfavour
from the walls and the vault of the church.

In the night, which had till then been speechless, there
was suddenly heard the singing of several hundred voices,
and the sound of the bell and the chant of the psalms were
borne afar.

The prisoners awoke in their dungeons and, rattling their
chains, began to listen.

' ' The Tsar is reading the matins ! ' ' they said. ' ' O Lord,
soften his heart, put mercy into his soul ! ' *

Small children that were sleeping by the side of their
mothers awoke in terror and began to cry. Many a mother
could not quiet her babe for a long time.

' ' Hush ! ' ' she finally said. ' ' Hush, or Malyuta will hear
you!"

At the mention of Malyuta the child stopped crying and
in its fright pressed close to its mother, and during the still-
ness of the night there were again heard the psalms of the
oprichniks, and the continuous ringing of the bell.

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 255
THE DEATH OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE

ACT I. SCENE 2.

(The Tsar's bedchamber. Ivdn, pale and exhausted, in a black
cassock, is sitting in an arm-chair, beads in his hand.
Near him, on a table, lies the Cap of Monomdkh ; on the
other side, on a stool, are the royal vestments. Grigori
Nagdy is handing him a goblet.*}

Nagdy. O Tsar! one drop of wine thou 'It drink,
One drop refuse not. Thou these many days
Dost wear thyself out. All this time thy lips
Have nothing touched.

Ivdn. The body needs no food

When the soul is fed on anguish. Henceforth
Remorse shall be my food.

Nagdy. O mighty Tsar!

Is 't true thou wouldst forsake us ? How will it
With the Tsaritsa be ? with the Tsarevich
Thy Dimitri ?

Ivdn. God will not forsake them.

Nagdy. But who can hold the reins of government
Except thyself ?

Ivdn. My mind's edge is blunted;

My heart is faint; my hands are powerless
To hold the reins; already for my sins,
To th' pagan God hath given victory,
Commanded me my throne that I give up
Unto another; my iniquities
Are more than sands o' th' sea : a cannibal —
Tormentor — lecher — church-prof aner I :
The boundlessness of God's long-suffering
Have I exhausted by the last misdeed.

Nagdy. O Tsar ! Thou dost exaggerate thy sin ;
Thy mind went not with it. Thou meantest not
To slay the Tsarevich : thy staff by accident
Did give the blow.

256 The Nineteenth Century

Ivdn. 'T is false! I knowingly,

On purpose, of free will did slay him. Or
Was I then mad, knew not where fell my blow ?
No — I slew him purposely ! On his back
He fell, bathed in his blood, aye, kissing
These my hands; and dying he forgave me
My monstrous sin, but I forgive myself
Such crimes dare not.

(Speaks low.}

This very night to me
Appeared he, beckoned with bloody hand,
And, pointing to a cowl, he waved me on
With him along, unto the holy dwelling
By the White Lake, ev'n there where lie the relics
Of Cyril the Wonder-worker.

There loved I formerly alone to be
At times from out the tempests of the world ;
There loved I, far from every care, to think
Of future rest, and the unthankfulness
Of man, and the malicious wiles of foes forget;
Mournfully sweet it was to me within
Some cell to rest me from the day's exertions,
In evening hour to watch the clouds float by,
Hear but the winds sough, and the cries of gulls,
And of the lake the plash monotonous,
All silent there. There passion 's all forgotten.
There will I take the cowl, and it may be
By prayer, by life-long fasting and contrition,
That I shall merit pardon of my curse.

(A silence.}

Go thou, and learn the reason that so long
Their conference lasts. Soon shall I know their sentence.
When come they with their Tsar ? I '11 lay on him
At once the regal mantle and the crown !

(Exit Nag6y.)

The end of all ! And hither am I brought
Along the lengthened path of majesty.
What have I met with on 't ? Sufferings alone.

Count Aleksyey Konstantinovich Tolstoy 257

E'en from my youth but knowing of unrest,
Now on the steed, amid the whistling shot,
The heathen subjecting, now in the Council
Struggling against the boyars in revolt,
I see behind me but a long-drawn line
Of sleepless nights and troubled days.

I have not gracious to my people been —
No! I had never mastery o'er myself.
Father Sylvester, my good old tutor,
Would say to me, " Ivan, take care! In thee
Satan would seat him. Open not thy soul
To him, Ivan." But I was deaf unto
The holy, aged man, and oped my soul
Unto the devil. No, no Tsar am I.
A wolf! a stinking cur! a tyrant!
My son I 've slain! Cain's crime I have outpast!
A leper in soul and mind ! The sores
That eat away my heart are countless !
O thou, God Christ, heal me, and forgive me
From my unheard-of foulness, and among
The choir of the blessed count my soul.

—From The Death of Ivdn the Terrible, .
transl. by I. H. Harrison.

THE KURGiN

Where the broad level steppe lies bare

There stands a lonely mound,
Beneath a famous warrior erst

His latest honour found.

Three days the funeral feast endured,

Three days his meinie strove;
His wives the priests did offer there,

The war horse he did love.

But when at length he buried lay,
The noisy rites were o'er,

VOL. II. — 17.

258 The Nineteenth Century

Singers foretold his fame to be,
Golden the lute he bore.

" O hero, yet thy deeds shall be

A mighty nation's boast,
Nor shall thy loudly-sounded name

Through ages all be lost.

' ' Nay, should thy lofty tomb be laid

Low as this barren plain,
Yet far thy fame shall ever spread,

Honoured thy dust remain."

And see! the years have passed amain,

And centuries have ranged,
Nations to nations given place,

Countries their fall have changed.

But still that mound its head lifts high,
Where the great chief doth rest,

Nor level with the ground it lies;
Still proudly soars its crest.

But through the years his glorious name

Was lost, nor lived till now.
Who was he, and what coronets

Graced his victorious brow ?

What blood was it he shed in streams,

What towns in ashes laid ?
What death was it he died, and when

Was his sepulture paid ?

This lonely mound doth naught reply,

The warrior is forgot,
And games no more nor songs record

His once lamented lot.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 259

Only the wild giraffe darts by,

Bounding across the plain,
Or locusts in a fluttering swarm

Settle, then on again.

Anon the cranes from high in air,

Their goal is now in sight,
Descend, shrill wayfarers, to rest

And preen for their last flight.

And there the timid jerboa leaps

When slowly dies the day,
Or rider high on mettled steed

Takes there his headlong way.

And, as across the sky they sail,

The clouds let drop their tears,
And lightly thence the passing breeze

The dust unheeded bears.

— Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian
Literary Society, No. 25.

Ivdn Alekseindrovich Gonchar6v. (1812-1891.)

Gonchar6v was born in Simbirsk where his father was a wealthy
merchant. His first ten years he passed in his home amidst the sloth
and indolence of the old Russian patriarchalism. In 1822 he was
placed in an educational institution at Moscow, and twelve years
later he graduated from the university. He began early to translate
from the French and from other languages, in which he was versed,
but his first original story appeared only in 1847. This novel, A
Usual Story, at once attracted attention by its realistic pictures of
details, and by the fine raillery at the Romantic extravagancies of its
hero. In 1852 Gonchar6v was invited by the Ministry of Marine to
accompany an expedition which was to circumnavigate the world
on a mission to Japan. The result of this voyage was his memoirs,
Fiigate Pallada, which for brilliancy of description surpass any book
in the Russian language on travels. During his voyage he, at the
same time, worked on his great novel, Obldmov^ for which he had
laid the plan long before. It was published in 1858 and created a
sensation unlike any other previous production in Russia. The

26o The Nineteenth Century

country was on the eve of the emancipation, and everybody was filled
with the optimism that the native indolence was soon to come to an
end, when Gonchar6v with marvellous plasticism generalised that
very indolence in his hero, and made him succumb to it : everybody
who read the book recognised himself, and trembled lest he should
also become a victim of Russian fatalism. Gonchar6v's later novel,
The Declivity, was less successful.

In English there are some extracts translated from Obldmov in the
Library of the World's Best Literature and in Garnett's Universal
Anthology.

FROM "OBLOMOV"

* ' Go ahead with the description of the ideal of your

life Well, good friends around you: what next ? How

would you pass your days ? ' '

"Well, I should rise in the morning," began Oblomov,
placing his hands back of his head, and an expression of rest
came over his face: he was in thought already in the
country. * ' The weather is fine, the sky deep-blue, and
there is not a cloud," he said. " One side of my house is
turned with its balcony to the east, facing the garden and
fields, the other towards the village. While waiting for my
wife to get up, I should put on my smoking- jacket and
should saunter through the garden, to breathe the morning
evaporations; there I should find the gardener, and we
should together water the flowers, and lop the bushes and
trees. I cull a bouquet for my wife. Then I take a bath
in the bath-tub or in the river; I return, the balcony is
open ; my wife has on a blouse and a light morning cap that
barely stays on the head and that will be wafted away by
the slightest breeze. She is waiting for me. ' Tea is ready, '
she says. What a kiss! What tea! What a restful arm-
chair ! I seat myself at the table : upon it are toast, cream,
fresh butter "

"Then?"

" Then I don a comfortable coat or jacket, and lose my-
self with my wife in an endless, deep avenue of trees: we
walk softly, lost in meditation, or think aloud, dream, count
the moments of happiness, like the beating of the pulse, and

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 261

listen to the beating and fainting of the heart; we look for

sympathy in Nature and by degrees we reach a brook or

a field The river barely splashes; the ears of corn

wave with the wind. 'T is warm we seat ourselves in

the boat, my wife rows, barely raising the oars "

' ' Yes, you are a poet, Ilyd ! ' ' Stolz interrupted him.

* ' Yes, a poet of life, for life is poetry. It is the privilege
of people to distort it ! Then we can enter the greenhouse, ' '
continued Oblomov, himself becoming intoxicated with the
ideal which he was depicting. He extracted from his
memory ready, long-present pictures, and therefore he spoke
with warmth, and without stopping. "We look at the
peaches, at the grapes, ' ' he said : * ' We tell what to send to
table; then we return, take a light breakfast and wait for

friends There is a note for my wife from some Marya

Petrovna, with a book or music; or a pine-apple has been
sent us as a present, or in our own garden a monster melon
has ripened, and we send it to some good friend, for to-
morrow's dinner, and we go there ourselves In the

meantime everything is busy in the kitchen; the cook is
running around in an apron and cap as white as snow: he
puts down one pot, takes up another; there he stirs, here he
begins to mix the dough; there he pours out some water
— the knives are rattling — they are chopping some spinach

— there they turn the ice-cream freezer 'T is a pleasure

to look into the kitchen before dinner, to open a saucepan,
sniff, take a glance at the making of the cakes, and beating
of the cream. Then to lie down on the sofa ; the wife

reads aloud something new; we stop, quarrel a bit But

there are guests coming, say, you and your wife."

" Bah, you are getting me married, too ? "

" By all means! Two, three friends more, — the same old
faces. We take up the unfinished conversation of yesterday.
Then come jokes, or there falls upon us an eloquent silence,
a meditation, — not on account of the loss of some place, not
on account of some affair of the Senate, but from the fulness

of satisfied desire, — a meditation of enjoyment You

will hear no philippics, with foam upon the lips, against an

262 The Nineteenth Century

absent person; you will not notice a glance cast at you that
promises you the same the moment you have closed the
door. You will not dip your bread in his salt cellar whom
you do not love, who is not good. In the eyes of the inter-
locutors you will perceive sympathy, in their jests, a sin-
cere, harmless laughter Everything from the soul!

What is in the eyes, is in the words and hearts. After din-
ner— a mocha, a Havana cigar on the terrace ' '

" You are painting me there the same that has been with
our fathers and grandfathers."

"No, not the same," retorted Oblomov, almost offended.
" How can you say so? Do you suppose my wife would
be preserving jams and mushrooms? Would she be count-
ing skeins, and looking after the homespun ? Would she be
boxing the servant girls' ears? Don't you hear? — There
would be music, books, piano, fine furniture ! ' '

" Well, and you yourself ? "

" I myself would not be reading last year's newspapers,
would not travel in a kolymaga, would not eat noodles and
goose meat, and would have my cook taking lessons in the
English club or at the ambassador's."

" And then?"

" Then, when the heat would subside, I should send a car-
riage with the samovar, with a dessert, to the birch forest,
or else, to the field, on the newly mown grass, I should have
carpets spread between the hayricks, and there we should
be staying in bliss until cold hash and beefsteak. The
peasants are returning from the field, with their scythes over
their shoulders; there creeps by a waggon with hay that con-
ceals the vehicle and the horse; above, a peasant's cap,
adorned with flowers, and a child's head stick out of the
hay; there, a crowd of barefooted old women, with sickles,

talk aloud Suddenly they notice their masters, and

they grow silent, and bow low.

1 'T is damp in the field, and dark; a mist, like an in-
verted sea, hovers over the rye; the horses jerk their shoul-
ders and stamp their hoofs: 't is time to go home. In the
house the fires are lit ; in the kitchen there is a mighty rattle

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 263

of knives; there is a pan of mushrooms, cutlets, berries

there is music Casta diva — Casta diva!" sang out Ob-
lomov. " I cannot mention with indifference Casta diva,"
he said, after singing the beginning of the cavatina; " how
that woman weeps her heart away ! What melancholy there
is in those sounds And no one around her knows any-
thing She is alone The secret weighs heavily

upon her; she confides it to the moon "

' ' Do you like that aria ? I am very glad : Olga Ilinski
sings it beautifully. I '11 introduce you to her, — what a
voice, what singing ! And what a charming child she her-
self is! However, maybe I am a prejudiced judge: I have

a small weakness for her But, don't let me distract

you," Stolz added: " Go ahead with your description! "

" Well," continued Oblomov, "what more ? yes, that 's

all The guests scatter to the side buildings, to the pa-
vilions; the next day they go in different directions: one to
fish, another to hunt; a third, — well, just sits down "

" How, with nothing in his hands ? " asked Stolz.

" What do you want ? Well, with a handkerchief, if you
please. Why, would you not like to pass such an ex-
istence ? " asked Oblomov, "or, is n't that an existence ? "

" All my life that way ? " asked Stolz.

" To your grey hair, to the grave. This is life! "

"No, it is not."

" How not? What is lacking here? Just consider that
you would not see a single poor, suffering face, no care, not
a single question about the Senate, exchange, shares, re-
ports, audience at the minister's, ranks, increase of salary.
Nothing but soul- felt conversations. You would never have
to move from one house to another, — that in itself is worth
something ! And you say that is not life ? ' '

" That is not life! " Stolz repeated stubbornly.

" What is it then according to you ? "

1 ' That is ' ' Stolz fell to musing and was trying to find

a proper expression for such a life, " I should call it

Obl6movism ! " he finally said.

" Ob-16m-ov-ism! " Obl6mov uttered slowly, wondering

264 The Nineteenth Century

at the strange word, and pronouncing it by syllables: ' * Ob-
I6m-ov-ism ! ' ' — he looked strangely and fixedly at Stolz.
"What, then, in your opinion, is the ideal of life? What
is not Obl6movism ? ' ' he asked timidly, without passion.
" Do not all strive for the same thing that I am dreaming
of ? Say yourself," he added more boldly, " is not the aim
of all our running, passions, wars, commerce, politics the
obtaining of peace, is it not a striving for that ideal of a lost
paradise?"

"Your very Utopia is of the Oblomov kind," retorted
Stolz.

" Everybody is in search of rest and quiet," Oblomov de-
fended himself.

" Not all, and you yourself did not look for that in life
ten years ago."

" What did I look for ? " Oblomov asked, perplexed, as he
mentally transferred himself into the past.

' ' Try to recall it. Where are your books and transla-
tions?"

" Zakhar has put them somewhere," answered Obl6mov,
" they are somewhere in the corner here."

1 'In the corner!" Stolz said reproachfully. "In this
same corner lie your intentions ' to serve, while strength
lasts, because Russia needs hands and heads to exploit its
inexhaustible resources' — I am quoting your words: 'to
work, in order to rest more sweetly; and to rest means to
live with the other, aristocratic, artistic side of life, the life
of artists, poets. ' Has Zakhar stored away all these inten-
tions also in the corner ? Do you remember, you had in-
tended, after having studied from books, to travel in foreign
countries, in order to know and love yours better ? 'All life
is thought and work, ' you used to repeat then : ' an un-
noticed, dark, but incessant work, and to die with the con-
sciousness of having done your work ' — well, in what corner
does all that lie now ? "

1 ' Yes yes ' ' said Obl6mov, restlessly following

every word of Stolz' s, " I do remember, I really did it

seems That 's so! " he suddenly exclaimed, as the past

Ivan Aleksandrovich Gonchar6v 265

returned to him. " Why, Andrey, we had made up our
minds to crisscross Europe, to walk through all of Switzer-
land, to burn our feet on Mount Vesuvius, to go down to
Herculaneum. We almost went insane ! How many foolish
things! "

" Foolish things!" Stolz repeated reproachfully. "Did
you not say in tears, as you looked at the engravings of
Raphael's Madonnas, at Correggio's Night, at the Apollo
Belvedere : ' L,ord ! Shall I really never be able to gaze at
the originals and be dumb with terror at the thought that
I am standing before the productions of Michael Angelo,
Titian, and that I tread the soil of Rome ? Shall I pass my
life seeing these myrtles, cypresses, and orange trees in hot-
houses, and not in their native home ? Not to breathe the air
of Italy, not to drink in the azure of its sky ! ' And what
superb fireworks you used to send out of your head. Fool-
ish things!"

" Yes, yes! I remember," said Oblomov, as he lost him-
self in the past. ' ' You once took me by my hand and said
to me : * Let us promise not to die before having seen all
that! "

" I remember," continued Stolz, " how you once brought
me a translation from Say, with a dedication to me upon my
birthday: I still have the whole translation. How you shut
yourself up with the teacher of mathematics, and wanted by
all means to find out what good there was in knowing circles
and squares, and then you gave it up before you were half
way through, without having found it out! You began to
study English — and you did not learn it! And when I
made a plan of a journey abroad, and asked you to come to
see me at the German universities, you jumped up, embraced
me, and solemnly gave me your hand : * I am with you,
Andrey, everywhere with you,' those are all your words.
You have always been something of an actor. Well, Ilya ?
I have been twice abroad ; after having been crammed full of
our native wisdom, I sat modestly on the student benches at
Bonn, Jena, Erlangen, then I studied Europe like my estate.
But one might say, a journey is a luxury and not all are

266 The Nineteenth Century

able or obliged to make use of that means ; what about
Russia? I have seen Russia up and down. I work "

" Sometime you '11 stop working," Oblomov remarked.

" I shall never stop. Why should I ? "

' ' When you have doubled your capital, ' ' said Obl6mov.

" Not when I increase it fourfold."

1 ' What is all this unrest for, ' ' he said after a silence, * ' if
it is not your aim to provide for the future and to retire later
for a rest?"

" Country Oblomovism! " said Stolz.

* ' Or by service to gain importance and position in society,
and then in honourable indolence to enjoy a well-deserved
rest "

" Petersburg Obl6movism! " exclaimed Stolz.

' ' When is one to live, pray ? ' ' Oblornov replied with
annoyance to Stolz' s remarks. " Why should one worry a
whole life away ? "

" For work's sake, and for nothing else. Work is the
image, contents, element, and aim of life, at least, of my life.
You have driven work out of life : what is it like now ?
I '11 try to raise you, maybe, for the last time. If you will
be staying here after that, with your Tarantevs and Alek-
sye"evs, you will go to perdition, and be a burden to your-
self. Now or never ! " he concluded.

Oblomov listened, fixing his excited eyes upon him.
His friend had, so to say, placed a mirror before him, and
he became frightened as he recognised himself.

" Do not scold me, Andrey, but really help me! " he be-
gan with a sigh. " I am tormented myself by it, and if you
had seen or heard me only to-day, how I am digging my
own grave and lamenting over myself, you would never have
had the courage to blame me so much. I know and under-
stand all, but I have no strength and no will. Give me
your will-power and mind, and lead me where you wish. I
shall probably go with you, but alone I will never move from
the spot. You are saying the truth : ' Now or never ! '
Another year, and it will be too late! "

" Is it you, Ilya ? " said Andr£y. " I remember you as a

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 267

slender, lively boy, as you walked every day from Prechis-
tenka to Kudrino; there, in the garden you have not for-
gotten the two sisters ? You have not forgotten Rousseau,
Schiller, Goethe, Byron, which you used to carry to them,
and you took away from them the novels of Cottin, Janlis
— you put on such importance before them, you wanted to

purify their taste ? ' '

Obi omov jumped up from his bed. " What, you remem-
ber that too, Andrey ? That is so ! I dreamt with them,
whispered hopes of the future to them, developed plans,
ideas, and — feelings too, secretly from you, lest you should
ridicule me. All that is dead, it was never repeated!
Where has it all gone to, and why has it been extinguished ?
Incomprehensible ! There have been no storms, no violent
perturbations with me; I have not lost anything; no yoke
burdens my conscience; it is as pure as glass; no stroke has
killed ambition in me. God knows why all that has gone! "
He sighed. " Do you know, Andrey? There has never
burnt in my life, neither a redeeming, nor a destructive fire !
It has never resembled a morning upon which gradually fall
colours and fire until it is changed into day, as with others;
and then it flames up, and boils, moves in the brilliant mid-
day, and then softly, very softly, becomes paler and paler,
and naturally and gently dies out towards evening. No,
my life began with the extinction ! Strange to say, it is so !
From the first moment that I have been conscious of myself,
I have felt that I am already being extinguished. I began
to go out when I was writing documents in the chancery ; I
was going out when, later, I read in books truths that I did
not know what to do with in life; I was going out among
my friends, as I listened to the disputes, gossips, malicious
teasings, ill-minded and cold prattle, emptiness, and as I
looked at the friendship that was supported by aimless and
unsympathetic meetings; I was going out in the languid and
indolent saunterings along the Nevski Prospect, among rac-
oon furcoats and beaver collars, — at evening entertain-
ments, receptions, where I was gladly received as a possible
prospective bridegroom; I was going out and trifling away

268 The Nineteenth Century

life and reason when I migrated from the city to the coun-
try, and from the country back to the Gor6khovaya
street, measuring spring by the arrival of oysters and lob-
sters, autumn and winter by reception days, summer by
excursions, and life in general by an indolent and restful

dreaming, like the rest Even my ambition, what did I

waste it upon ? To order a garment from a well-known
tailor, in order to find my way into a certain house, in order
that Prince P. should press my hand. And ambition is the
salt of life! What has become of it? Either I did not
understand this life, or it is good for nothing, and I knew
and saw nothing better, and no one showed it to me. You
used to appear and disappear like a comet, brilliantly,
swiftly, and I forgot all about it, and went out "

Stolz no longer answered with a careless banter Oblomov's
speech. He listened and kept a grim silence.

" You told me lately that my face was not quite fresh, that
it was crushed, ' ' continued Obl6mov. ' ' Yes, I am a thread-
bare, old, worn-out coat, but not from the effect of the
climate, and labour, but because for twelve years light was
imprisoned within me; it sought an exit, and only burnt
the prison, and did not get its liberty, and went out. Thus,
my dear Andrey, have passed twelve years of mine, and I
lost the desire to awaken."

1 ' Why did you not tear yourself away and run somewhere,
instead of perishing in silence ? ' * Stolz asked impatiently.

"Whither?"

' ' Whither ? If you could do nothing better, with your
peasants to the V6lga: there is more motion there, there
are there some kind of interests, aims, work. I should have
gone to Siberia, to Sitka ' '

' ' You prescribe such dreadfully strong measures ! ' ' Ob-
lomov remarked languidly.

" I am not alone in that. There is Mikhaylov, Petrov,

Semenov, Aleksyeev, Stepanov You can't count them

all : our name is legion ! "

Stolz was still under the influence of that confession and
he was silent. Then he sighed. " Yes, much water has

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 269

flowed since then! " he said. " I will not leave you as you
are; I '11 take you away from here, first abroad, and then
into the country: you will grow a little thinner, you will
stop pining away, and we shall find some work for you "

1 * Yes, let us get away from here ! ' ' the words escaped from
Oblomov.

' ' To-morrow we will apply for a passport abroad, then we
will pack up I will not leave you, do you hear, Ilyd? ' '

" It is always to-morrow with you! " retorted Oblomov, as
though coming down from the clouds.

1 ( You would prefer, ' Don't put off for to-morrow what you
can do to-day? ' What a hurry! It is too late now," Stolz
added. ' * In two weeks we shall be far away ' '

' ' You talk of two weeks, my friend ! How so ? I/et us

consider it properly and get ready I '11 have to get

some carriage say rather in three months."

" Talk of a carriage! We shall travel to the border in a
stage coach, or in a steamer as far as Lubeck, that will be
much more convenient. There we shall find railroads in
many places."

" And what about the house, and Zakhar, and Oblomovka ?
Some kind of arrangements will have to be made," Oblomov
defended himself.

1 ' Oblomovism, Obl6movism ! ' ' said Stolz, laughing ; then
he took a candle, wished Oblomov good-night, and went to
bed. ' * Now or never ! — Remember ! " he added, as he turned
back to Oblomov and closed the door behind him.

1 ' Now or never ! ' ' were the first threatening words he
thought of as he awoke in the morning. He rose from his
bed, walked three times up and down the room, and looked
into the sitting-room where Stolz was sitting and writing.
" Zakhar! " he called out, but he did not hear him jumping
down from the oven bed. Zakhar did not make his appear-
ance,— Stolz had sent him to the post-office. Oblomov
walked up to his dusty table, sat down, picked up a pen,
dipped it in the inkstand, but there was no ink in it, looked
for some paper, but there was none. He fell to musing, and
mechanically began to draw with his finger in the dust, then

270 The Nineteenth Century

he looked down to see what he had written : it turned out to
be " Oblomovism. " He hurriedly wiped away the writing
with his sleeve. That word he had been dreaming of in the
night : it was written in flaming letters upon the wall, as at
Belshazzar's feast. Zakhar arrived and when he found
Oblomov not in his bed, he dimly looked at his master,
wondering why he should be on his legs. In that dull
glance of astonishment was written : ' ' Obl6movism ! ' '
"One single word," thought Ilya Ilyich, "but how

poisonous! "

Zakhar took, as usual, the comb, brush, and towel, and
stepped towards his master to fix his hair. ' ' Go to the
devil! " Oblomov exclaimed angrily and knocked the brush
out of Zakhar' s hands, and Zakhar himself dropped the
comb on the floor.

" Would you not like to lie down again ? " asked Zakhar.
11 If so, I shall fix the bed for you."

' * Bring me ink and paper, ' ' answered Oblomov.

He fell to musing over the words: " Now or never! " As
he listened inwardly to this despairing appeal of reason and
willpower, he consciously weighed the little willpower that
was left to him, whither he would carry it, into what he
would put that paltry remnant. After having pondered over
it painfully, he seized the pen, dragged a book out of the
corner, and in one hour wanted to read, write, and think all
that he had neglected to read, write, and think in ten years.
What was he to do now ? To go ahead, or to remain ? This
Obl6mov question was of more import to him than Hamlet's.
To go ahead, — that would mean at once doffing his comfort-
able dressing-gown, not only from the shoulders, but from
the soul and mind; together with the cobweb on the walls to
sweep away the cobweb from the eyes, and regain eyesight !
What first step should be made for this ? Where begin ? "I
do not know — I cannot — no, I am begging the ques-
tion, I do know, and And here is Stolz by my side; he

will tell me. What will he tell me ? ' In a week,' he will
say, ' you must sketch a detailed instruction for your pleni-
potentiary and send him into the village. Get your Obl6m-

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov 271

ovka mortgaged, buy some more land, send a plan of new
buildings, give up your house, procure a passport, and go
abroad for six months, to get rid of your surplus fat, to throw
off the weight, to refresh the soul with the atmosphere of
which you have dreamed long ago with your friend, to live
without a dressing gown, without Zakhar and Tarantev, to
put on your own socks and take off your own boots, sleep only
at night, travel where all travel, on railroads, steamboats,
and then — Then to settle in Obl6movka, to find out
what sowing and threshing is, why peasants are poor or
well-to-do, walk over the fields, go to elections, to the fac-
tory, to the mill, the docks. At the same time you are to
read newspapers, books, and become excited why the Eng-
lish have sent a warship to the East ' That 's what he

will say! That 's what is meant by going ahead, and thus
it is to be all my life ! Farewell, poetical ideal of life ! That
is some kind of a blacksmith shop, not life ! There is in it

an eternal fire, hammering, heat, din But when is one

to live ? Would it not be better to stay ? To stay means
to put on a shirt over all, to hear the patter of Zakhar 's feet
as he jumps down from his couch, to dine with Tarantev, to
think less about anything, never to finish the * ' Voyage to
Africa," to grow peacefully old in these chambers, at the
house of Tardntev's ladyfriend."

"Now or never!" "To be or not to be!" Oblomov
was about to rise from his chair, but his foot did not at once
find its way into the slipper, and he sat down again.

Nikoldy Aleksandrovich Dobrolyubov. (1836-1861.)

Dobrolyiibov was the most powerful of critics belonging to the
school of Byelinski. In the short period of three years in which he
devoted himself exclusively to criticism, he produced four large vol-
umes of minute analyses of the intellectual and social movements at
the end of the fifties. His most famous essay is What is Obldmov-
ism f in which he places all the heroes of previous novels in the same
category with the hero in Gonchar6v's story. Dobrolyubov was born
in Nizhni-N6vgorod as the son of a poor priest. He studied at a
Seminary and at the Pedagogical Institute at St. Petersburg, strug-
gling all the time against want. He practised much ascetism,

272 The Nineteenth Century

and kept strict account of himself and his mental evolution by means
of a diary. He later transferred this ascetism and scrupulous self-
examination to his literary work.

WHAT IS OBLOMOVISM?

It was remarked long ago that all the heroes of the
most noted Russian stories and novels suffer from not seeing
any aim in life and from not finding any proper occupation
for themselves. On account of this they feel ennui and a
dislike for all kinds of work, thus presenting a striking simi-
larity to Obl6niov. Indeed, open, for example, Evgtni
Ony£gin, The Hero of Our Time, Who is to be Blamed, Rudin,
or Useless Men, or Hamlet of Shchigrdv County, * — in every
one of them you will find traits that are literally identical
with those in Oblomov

One feels the breeze of a new life when, after reading

Oblomov, one stops to think what it is that has called forth
this type in literature. It cannot be ascribed solely to the
personal talent of the author and to the breadth of his views.
Great talent and the broadest and humanest conceptions are
to be found also in the authors who have produced the
former types, mentioned above. But the fact is that since
the appearance of the first of these, Onyegin, up to the
present, thirty years have passed. What was then in the
embryo, what was then whispered in indistinct words, has
now assumed a definite, concrete form, has been proclaimed
openly and aloud. The trite phrase has lost its meaning;
there has arisen in society itself the need for actual work.

Beltov a and Rudin, men with really high and noble tend-
encies, not only could not grasp the necessity, but could
not even imagine the near possibility of a terrible, mortal
conflict with actualities that oppressed them. They entered
into a deep unknown forest, walked over a dangerous bog,
saw under their feet various reptiles and serpents, and
climbed a tree, — partly to see whether they could not dis-

1 These works are by the following authors : Pushkin, Le*nnontov,
Ge"rtsen, Turg£nev, Saltyk6v, Turge"nev.

2 Hero in Who is to be Blamed?

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyiibov 273

cover a road somewhere, partly to rest and for a time at least
to save themselves from the danger of sinking into the mire
or being stung. The people who followed them waited for
them to say something, and looked at them with respect as
at people who had taken the lead. But these leaders saw
nothing from the elevation to which they had climbed: the
forest was very extensive and dense.

However, while climbing the tree, they have scratched their
faces, wounded the feet, spoiled their hands. They suffer,
they are fatigued, they must rest themselves, after having
fixed a comfortable place upon the tree. It is true, they do
nothing for the common good, they have discovered no way,
and they say nothing. Those who stand beneath them
must, without their aid, clear for themselves a road through
the forest. But who will dare to throw a stone at these un-
fortunate men in order to make them fall down from their
height in which they have settled after such difficulties,
having in view the public good ? They have the sympathy
of the others, they are not even required to take part in the
clearing of the forest; another work fell to their lot, and they
did it. If it led to nothing, it is not their fault. Every one
of the former authors could look at his Obl6mov hero from
that standpoint, and he was right. To this was also added
the circumstance that the hope of finding a way out from the
forest upon the road was long maintained by the whole
crowd of the travellers, just as their confidence was long
maintained in the far-sightedness of the leaders who had
climbed the tree.

But by degrees the affair becomes clearer, and it takes a
different turn. The leaders have taken a liking to the tree:
they very eloquently discuss the ways and means of issuing
from the bog and from the forest. They have found on the
tree some kind of fruit which they enjoy, after throwing
down the shell. They invite a few of the select from the
crowd to come to them, and these climb up and stay there,
not to look for the road, but to eat the fruit. They are now
Obl6movs in the true sense. The poor travellers who stand
below sink in the mire, serpents sting them, reptiles frighten

VOL. II. — 18.

274 The Nineteenth Century

them, and branches strike their faces. At last, the crowd
decides to be doing something, and want to get back those
who have lately climbed the tree; but the Obl6movs keep
silent and glut themselves on the fruit. Then the crowd
turns to its former leaders and begs them to come down and
to help them in the common work. But the leaders again
repeat the old trite phrases that it is necessary to find the
road, but that it is useless to think of clearing the forest.

It is then that the poor travellers see their mistake, and
turn their backs on them and say : ' ' Sure enough, you are
all Oblomovs! " And they begin to work with a vim and
without cessation : they cut down the trees, make a bridge
with them through the bog, lay out a path, kill the serpents
and reptiles that are in their way, and no longer pay any
attention to those clever fellows with their strong natures,
those Pech6rins and Rtidins, on whom they had all their
dependence before and whom they so admired. At first the
Obl6movists look calmly at the common movement, but
later, as is their wont, they lose courage and begin to cry :

"Oh, oh! Don't do that; leave off!" they cry as they
notice that the tree upon which they are sitting is about to
be cut down. " Consider, we might be killed, and then
there will perish with us all those beautiful ideas, all those
elevated sentiments, all those humane tendencies, that elo-
quence, that pathos, that love for everything beautiful and
noble, which ever lived in us. Stop, stop ! What are you
doing?"

But the travellers have heard these beautiful phrases a
thousand times, and they continue their work, without
paying any attention to them. The Obl6movists have an-
other chance to save their reputation : let them climb down
from the tree, and fall in with the work of the others. But,
as usual, they are at a loss what to do. ' ' How do you ex-
pect us all of a sudden ? " they repeat in despair, and they
continue to hurl their futile curses against the stupid crowd
that has lost respect for them.

The crowd, however, is right. If it has become conscious
of the necessity for actual work, it can be of no consequence

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyiibov 275

to it whether Pechorin stands before it, or Oblomov. We
do not assert that Pechorin would act in the given circum-
stances precisely like Oblomov; these very circumstances
cause him to develop in an entirely different direction. But
the types which a mighty genius creates are lasting: there
are even now some men living who represent, so to say, a
chip of Onyegin, Pechorin, and so forth, not in the form in
which they might have developed in other circumstances,
but just exactly as they are represented by Pushkin, I,er-
montov, and Turgenev. But in the social consciousness
they are evermore changed into Obl6inov.

It cannot be said that this change is already accomplished:
no, even now thousands of persons are wasting their time
in talking, and thousands of others are ready to regard this
talking as work. But that this transformation is beginning,
is proved by the type of Oblomov which Goncharov has
created. Its appearance would be impossible, if the con-
viction had not grown ripe in at least a small part of society
that those quasi-talented natures that caused so much de-
light in former days are quite insignificant. Formerly they
were cloaked by all kinds of mantles, adorned with all kinds
of coiffures, and they attracted to themselves by all kinds of
talents. But now Obl6mov appears before us divested of his
adornments, just as he is, uncommunicative, removed from
a beautiful pedestal to a soft divan, covered with an ample
morning robe, instead of a mantle. The question, What is
he doing ? Wherein is the meaning and aim of his life ? is
put directly and clearly, and it is not obscured by side ques-
tions. This is so, because the time for social labour has at
last come or is just coming. For this reason we say that we
see in Goncharov's novel a sign of the time.

Let us, indeed, see how the point of view has changed
which was held in regard to those cultivated and glib accum-
bents who in former days were taken for real social workers.

Here is before you a young man ; he is very handsome,
agile, and cultured. He makes his entry in fashionable
society and he has success there. He drives to the theatre,
to balls and masquerades; he dresses and dines superbly; he

276 The Nineteenth Century

reads books and writes very orthographically. His heart is
agitated only by the routine of fashionable life, but he has
also an idea about higher questions. He likes to talk of
passions,

Of prejudices centuries old

And fateful mysteries of the tomb.

He has a few honourable rules; he is capable

Of changing to light tenant pay
The yoke of old manorial labour;

he is capable of not taking advantage of the inexperience of
a girl whom he does not love ; he is capable of not ascribing
any special value to his worldly successes. He stands so far
above the fashionable society which surrounds him that he
has arrived at the consciousness of its inanity; he is even
able to leave that society and to settle in the country ; only,
not knowing what work to find for himself, time weighs
heavily upon him. Having nothing to do, he quarrels with
his friend and frivolously kills him in a duel. A few years
later he again makes his appearance in society and falls in
love with a woman whose love he himself rejected before,
because he would have been compelled to renounce his rov-
ing life for her. You recognise Onyegin in this man. But
take a good look at him : it is Oblomov.

There is another man before you, with a more passionate
soul, with a broader egoism. He has, as it were, all that
by nature which forms an object of care to Onyegin. He
does not worry about his toilet and apparel ; he is a man of
the world without all that. He does not need to pick his
words and to shine with his tinsel knowledge: without all
that his tongue is as sharp as a razor. He actually despises
men, well knowing their weaknesses; he really knows how
to conquer the hearts of women, not for a short moment, but
for a long time, often for ever. Everything that hampers
his way he knows how to remove or destroy. He has only
one misfortune: he does not know whither to go. His heart

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyiibov 277

is empty and cold to everything. He has experienced every-
thing, and even while a young man all pleasures which one
can get for money palled on him ; he also loathes the love of
worldly beauties, because it has given nothing to his heart ;
he is tired of the sciences, because he sees that neither glory
nor happiness depend upon them, that ignoramuses are the
happiest people, and that glory is a matter of success; dan-
gers of war soon wearied him, because he saw no sense in
them and because he readily got used to them.

In fine, even the sincere, pure love of a country girl whom
he really likes annoys him: he does not find even in her any
satisfaction for his impulses. But what impulses are they ?
Whither do they draw him ? Why does he not give himself
over to them with the whole power of his soul ? It is be-
cause he himself does not understand them and does not take
the trouble of thinking what to do with his power of soul.
So he passes all his life in making witticisms at the expense
of fools, in disquieting the hearts of inexperienced maidens,
in mixing up with the affairs of others' hearts, inviting
brawls, showing bravado in trifles, fighting without any

provocation You recollect that this is the history of

Pechorin, that with almost such words he explains his char-
acter to Maksim Maksimych. Please, do take a good look
at him : you will see Oblomov even in him.

Here is another man who walks upon his path with greater
self- consciousness. He not only understands that he is en-
dowed with great power, but he also knows that he has a
great purpose. It seems he even suspects what that purpose
is and where it is to be found. He is noble, honest, though
he frequently does not pay his debts; he discusses with
ardour not trifles, but higher questions; he assures us that
he is ready to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity. In
his mind all questions are solved, everything is brought into
a living, harmonious connection; by his mighty speech he
entices inexperienced youths so that, hearing him, they feel
that they have been called to something great.

Now, what does he spend his life on ? On beginning
everything and not finishing it, on scattering himself in all

278 The Nineteenth Century

directions, on following up things with ardour, without ac-
complishing them. He falls in love with a girl who finally
tells him that, in spite of her mother's prohibition, she is
ready to belong to him; whereat he answers: " Heavens! so
your mother does not give her consent! What a sudden
shock! Lord, how soon! There is nothing to be done, —
we must submit." And that is a real picture of all his life.
You already know that this is Rudin. No, that 's again
Oblomov. If you will take a good look at this person, and
will place him face to face with the demands of contemporary
life, you will yourself come to this conclusion.

All these people have this in common : they have no work
in life as their vital necessity, as their heart's holiness, their
religion, that might organically grow up with them so that
to deprive them of it would mean to take their life away.
Everything is external with them, nothing has any roots in
their natures. They may be doing something if compelled
by outward necessity, just as Obl6mov made calls wherever
Stolz took him, bought music and books for Olga, and read
what she made him read. But they have not their souls in
the work which accident imposes upon them. If they were
offered gratis all the external comforts which their labour
gives them, they would gladly turn away from their work.
By dint of his Oblomovism, the Obl6mov official will stop
going to his office, if that would not interfere with getting
his salary and his promotions. The warrior will make a
vow not to touch his arms, if he is offered the same con-
ditions, provided they permit him also to keep his beautiful
uniform which is very useful upon certain occasions. The
professor will abandon his lectures, the student his studies,
the writer his authorship, the actor will not appear on the
stage, the artist will break his chisel or his palette, to express
myself in eloquent style, if they can see their way of obtain-
ing for nothing that which they now get by work.

They talk of higher aims, of the consciousness of moral
obligations, of being imbued with the interests of society, —
but investigate it all, and you will find that it is nothing
but words" and words. Their sincerest, most heartfelt aim

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Dobrolyiibov 279

is their aim for rest, for the morning gown, and their very
activity is nothing else but an honourable morning gown (the
expression does not belong to me), with which they cover
their inanity and apathy. Even the most cultivated people,
such as possess a vivid nature and a warm heart, in practical
life very easily depart from their ideas and plans, very readily
make their peace with the reality that surrounds them,
though they do not cease speaking of it as low and contempt-
ible. This means that everything of which they speak
and dream is, in their case, foreign and external; but in the
depth of their soul is rooted one dream, one ideal, — a most
undisturbed rest, quietism, Obl6movism. Many go even so
far as not to be able to imagine a man working for the love

of it, from predilection

—If I now see a landed proprietor discussing the rights
of humanity and the necessity for the development of the
individual, — I know from his first words that he is an
Oblomov.

If I meet an official who complains of the intricacy and
laboriousness of the official routine, — he is an Oblomov.

If I hear from an officer tirades on the weariness of parades
and bold discussions of the uselessness of slow steps, etc., I
have no doubt that he is an Oblomov.

When I read in the periodicals liberalising sallies against
malfeasance, and expressions of joy that at last that which
we have been hoping and wishing for has been done, — I
think that these must be correspondences from Oblomovka.

When I am in a circle of cultivated people who feel warmly
for the needs of humanity and who for a series of years have
with undiminished zeal been telling the same anecdotes, or
at times even new ones, about bribe-takers, about oppres-
sions, about illegalities of all kinds, — I involuntarily feel
that I am transferred to old Oblomovka.

Stop these people in their noisy disputations and say to
them: " You say that so and so is wrong; well, what is to
be done ? ' ' They do not know. Propose the simplest
means to them, and they will say: " But pray, why so sud-
denly ? ' ' You may be sure they will say that, because

280 The Nineteenth Century

Oblomovs cannot speak otherwise. Continue your conversa-
tion with them and ask them : ' * What do you intend to do ? ' '
They will give you the same answer which Rudin gave to
Natalya: " What is to be done ? Of course, submit to fate.
What is to be done? I know too well how bitter, how

hard and intolerable it is, but judge yourself" and so

forth. You will get nothing else out of them, because upon
all of them is the stamp of Obl6movism.

Who will, at last, stir them from the spot with the almighty
word ' ' Forwards ! " of which Gogol has dreamed so much
and for which Russia has been waiting so long and so yearn-
ingly ? So far there is no answer to this question, neither
in society, nor in literature. Gonchar6v, who knew how to
grasp and represent to us our Oblomovism, could not help
paying his tribute to the universal delusion which still holds
strong sway over our society ; he decided to bury Oblomovism
and to hold a funeral sermon over it. " Farewell, old Ob-
lomovka, you have lived your day," he says with the lips of
Stolz, but he tells an untruth. All Russia that has read or
will read Obl6mov will not agree with it. No, Obl6movka
is our real country; its owners are our educators, its three
hundred Zdkhars are ever ready for our services. In every
one of us there is a goodly part of Obl6mov, and it is still
too early to write the inscription on our tomb.

Iv£n Sergyeevich Turgenev. (1818-1883.)

Turge*nev is the most noted of the novelists who began their liter-
ary career in the forties. He was brought up in the estate of his
father, in the Government of Ore"l. His early impressions were ex-
tremely unpleasant : his father belonged to the brutal type of the old
landed proprietors, and his mother developed, after the death of her
husband, similar repellent characteristics. Thus Turgdnev, who was
himself possessed of a soft and refined nature, received an early bias
against the whole institution of serfdom. In 1833 Turgenev entered
the St. Petersburg University, and five years later he went to Berlin
to finish his education. He had tried writing poetry before, but he
met with little success. Upon his return to Russia he wrote Pardsha,
a novel in verse, in which the Romantic incident of the story is
tempered by a goodly admixture of realism. It at once attracted at-
tention, and Turgenev was fairly launched into literature. But he

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 281

became a power in literature only at the end of the forties when he
began to publish his series of sketches from the life of the peasants
under the name of Memoirs of a Hunter : their effect was tremend-
ous: it was the first time that the public read sympathetic stories
about the serfs, and they did a great deal to hasten the emancipation.
The government looked awry at this tendency of Turge*nev's novels,
and when he, in 1852, wrote a eulogistic essay on G6gol, who had just
died, he was banished to his estate. Upon his release, he went abroad
where he, with short interruptions, passed the rest of his days. Then
followed that series of brilliant novels, Dimitri Rudin, Faust, A
Nest of Gentlefolk, which made him famous throughout Europe. In
1862 appeared his Fathers and Sons. In this novel he attempted to
give a picture of the new tendencies in Russian society. But he had
been too long away from Russian surroundings, and so he has been
blamed for not having grasped the positive characteristics of the
younger generation. His later productions are tinged by pessimism,
which finds its most pronounced expression in his Poems in Prose.

The following translations of Turge*nev's works have been pub-
lished : After Death, in Modern Age, 1883. Annals of a Sportsman,
extracts in Photographs from Russian Life, in Fraser's Magazine,
and in Graham's Magazine, 1854; Russian Life in the Interior.
London, 1855 ; Annals of a Sportsman, translated from the French
by F. P. Abbott (Leisure Hour Series, No. 164), New York, 1885 ;
Tales from the Note-book of a Sportsman, translated by E. Richter,
London, 1895. The Antchar, in Galaxy, 1873. Asya, under title
Assja, in Galaxy, 1877 ; Annouchka, translated from the French by
F. P. Abbott, Boston, 1884. Daughter of Russia, translated by G.
W. Scott (Seaside Library), New York, 1882. Desperate, in Cosmo-
politan, 1888. Dimitri Roudine (Leisure Hour Series), New York,
1873 (reprinted from Every Saturday, 1873). The Dream, in Home
Journal, 1878. Fathers and Sons, translated by E. Schuyler, New
York, 1867, London, 1888, and (Leisure Hour Series and Seaside
Library) New York, 1883 ; Fathers and Children, New York, 1883.
Faust, in Galaxy, 1872. First Love, and Punin and Baburin, trans-
lated by S. Jerrold, London, 1884. Hamlet and Don Quixote, translated
by J. Krdl and P. Durdik, in Poet Lore, vol. iv. The Idiot, London,
1887, and in Temple Bar, 1870. A Leaf of the Steppes, in London
Society, and in Living Age, 1873 ; Nobleman of the Steppes, in Scrib-
ner's Monthly, 1877. The Living Mummy, in Scribner's Monthly,
1876. Liza, translated by W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1869 and 1884,
and New York, 1872. Mumu, and Diary of a Superfluous Man,
translated by H. Gersoni, New York, 1884. Novels (containing
Dimitri Roudine,— Fathers and Sons, translated by E. Schuyler,
Liza, translated by Ralston, On the Eve, by Turner, Smoke, by

282 The Nineteenth Century

West, Spring-floods, by S. M. Butts, A Leaf of the Steppes, by W. H.
Browne), 6 vols., New York, 1874-5. On the Eve, translated by C.
B. Turner, London, 1871, and New York, 1873. Poems in Prose,
Boston, 1873 ; Senilia, Poems in Prose, in MacMillan's Magazine, vol.
xlix, 1887, and Eclectic Magazine, vol. cii, 1887 ; Senilia, Poems in
Prose, translated by S. J. Macmullan, Bristol, [1890]. The Priest's
Son, in Lippincott's, 1877. Punin and Baburin, translated by G. W.
Scott (Seaside Library), New York, 1882. The Ruffian (?) (Overland
Library, No. 13), New York, 188-. Smoke, or, Life at Baden, Lon-
don, 1868 ; Smoke, translated from the French, by W. F. West, New
York, 1873, and London, 1883. Song of Triumphant Love (Seaside
Library), New York, 1883. The Sorcerer, in Appleton's 1870 ; under
title How Russians meet Death, in Temple Bar, and in Living
Age, 1887. Spring Floods, translated by E. Richter, London, 1896.
Strange Adventure of Lieut. Yergunof, in Galaxy, 1877. Tales from
a Stormy Night, New York, 1891. Three Meetings, in Lippincott's,
1875. An Unfortunate Woman, also Assya, translated by H. Ger-
soni (Standard Library, No. 142), New York, 1886 ; The Unfortunate
One, translated by A. R. Thompson, London, 1888. Vassilissa, in
Romance, 1892. Virgin Soil, translated from the French by T. S.
Perry (Leisure Hour Series), New York, 1877, and London, 1883 —
translated by A. W. Dilke, London, 1878 and 1879. Visions, in Gal-
axy, 1872, and in Cornhill, and Living Age, 1880. The Watch, in
Lippincott's, 1876, and in The Bridal March, from the Norwegian of
Bjornson, and The Watch, translated by J. E. Williams, London,
1893. Works (containing Dimitri Roudine, Fathers and Sons, Liza,
Smoke, and Virgin Soil}, 5 vols., London, 1889. There is also a
complete set of his Works, translated from the Russian by Mrs.
Garnett, London, and New York, 1894-99.

FROM "FATHERS AND SONS"
i

Arkddi stepped towards his uncle, and he once more

felt the touch of his perfumed moustache upon his own
cheeks. PaVel Petr6vich seated himself at the table. He
was dressed in an elegant morning gown after the English
fashion; his head was embellished by a small fez. This fez
and the carelessly tied neckerchief hinted of the freedom of
country life; but the stiff collar of the shirt, which was not
white, but coloured, as is proper for the morning toilet,
stuck with customary inexorability against the clean-shaven
chin.

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 283

* * Where is your new friend ? " he asked Arkadi.

* ' He is not at home. He generally rises early and goes
away. The main thing is, not to pay any attention to him:
he does not like ceremonies."

' ' Yes, that is evident. ' ' Pavel Petrovich began leisurely
to spread some butter on his bread. " Is he going to stay
here long? "

:< That depends. He has stopped here on his way to his
father's."

" Where does his father live ? "

* * In our Government, some eighty versts from here. He
has a small estate there. He used to be an army surgeon. ' '

11 Well, well, well! That 's why I kept on asking myself:
' Where have you heard that name Bazarov ' ? Nikolay, it
seems to me there was a surgeon by the name of Bazdrov in
papa's division."

" I think there was."

" That 's right. So that surgeon is his father. Hm! "
Pavel Petr6vich smoothed his moustaches. ' ' Well, and Mr.
Bazarov himself, what is he ? " asked he with deliberation.

"What Bazarov is?" Arkddi smiled. "If you want,
uncle, I '11 tell you what he really is."

* ' Do me the favour, dear nephew. ' '

" He is a nihilist."

" What ? " asked Nikolay Petrovich, and Pavel Petr6vich
raised up his knive with a piece of butter at the end of the
blade, and remained immovable.

" He is a nihilist," repeated Arkadi.

1 ' Nihilist, ' ' muttered Nikolay Petr6vich. ' * That is from
the Latin nihil, nothing, so far as I can judge; consequently
that word designates a man who — who acknowledges no-
thing?"

" Say, who respects nothing," Pavel Petr6vich interrupted
him, starting again to spread his butter.

' ' Who looks at everything from the critical point of view,"
remarked Arkadi.

" Is not that the same ? " asked Pavel Petrovich.

' * No, not the same. A nihilist is a man who bows to no

284 The Nineteenth Century

authorities, who accepts not a single principle on faith, no
matter with what respect that principle be surounded."

"And do you call that good?" Pavel Petrovich inter-
rupted.

" It depends, uncle. It 's good for some, and very bad
for others."

" I declare. Well, that, I see, is beyond us. We are of
the older generation; we assume that without principles
(Pdvel Petrovich pronounced this word softly, in the French
fashion, Arkddi, on the contrary, pronounced it hard, with
a decided accent on the first syllable), without principles
taken, as you say, on faith, it is impossible to take a step,
or breathe. Vous avez chang£ tout cela. God grant you
health and the rank of general,1 but we shall only take

pleasure in looking at you, gentlemen what do you call

them?"

" Nihilists," Arkadi said distinctly.

' * Yes. Formerly there used to be Hegelists, and now
there are nihilists. Let us see how you are going to exist
in the vacuum, in an airless space. But now, please ring
the bell, brother Nikolay Petrovich; it is time for me to
drink my cocoa."

For some moments silence reigned upon the terrace.

Pavel Petrovich sipped his cocoa, and then he suddenly
raised his head.

1 ' There is the nihilist coming to honour us with his
presence, ' ' he said half aloud.

There was really Bazarov, crossing the beds in the garden.
His linen ulster and trowsers were smeared with mud; a
prickly swamp plant surrounded the band of his old round
hat ; in his right hand he held a small bag, and in the bag
were crawling living things. He rapidly approached the
terrace and said, nodding : ' ' Good-morning, gentlemen !
Excuse me for being late to tea. I shall be back at once; I
just want to find a place for my captives."

" What have you there, leeches ? " asked Pavel Petrovich.

"No, frogs."

1 See page 98, line 28.

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 285

1 * Do you eat them or raise them ? ' '

1 ' For experiments, ' ' indifferently answered Bazarov and
went into the house.

" You see, he is going to cut them up," remarked Pavel
Petrovich. ' * He does not believe in principles, but in frogs. ' '

Arkadi looked with pity at his uncle, and Nikolay Petro-
vich stealthily shrugged his shoulders. Pavel Petr6vich felt
himself that he had made an infelicitous remark, and began
to talk about the estate and the new manager who had come
to him a few days before to complain of Foma's having be-
come useless on account of his reckless ways.

Bazarov returned, seated himself at the table, and be-
gan hastily to drink his tea. Both brothers looked at him
in silence, and Arkadi threw stealthy glances, now upon his
father, now upon his uncle.

* * Did you have a long tramp ? ' ' finally asked Nikolay
Petr6vich.

' * You have a small swamp near the aspen grove. I there
scared up some five snipes. Arkadi, you '11 have some shoot-
ing there.'*

* ' Are you not a hunter ? ' '

" No."

' ' I understand your specialty is physics ? ' ' asked Pavel
Petr6vich in his turn.

" Yes, physics; natural sciences in general."

' ' They say the Teutons have of late made great progress
in this field."

"Yes, the Germans are in this our teachers," Bazarov
answered carelessly.

Pavel Petrovich had used the word Teutons, instead of
Germans, in irony, but no one took notice of it.

1 * Have you such a high opinion of the Germans ? ' ' spoke
Pavel Petrovich with affected politeness. He began to feel
a secret irritation. Bazarov's extreme plainness ruffled his
aristocratic nature. That son of a surgeon not only was not
abashed, but he answered abruptly and as if against his
will, and in the sound of his voice there was something
harsh, nay, impudent.

286 The Nineteenth Century

" Their learned men are a fine lot."

" Yes, yes. Well, I suppose, you have not the same flat-
tering conception of the Russian savants."

"I guess you are right."

' ' That is a very laudable self-abnegation, ' ' retorted Pavel
Petrovich, straightening himself, and throwing his head
back. "But how is *it Arkadi Nikol&evich told a little
while ago that you did not acknowledge any authorities?
Do you not believe them ? ' '

* * Why should I acknowledge them ? And what should I
believe ? If I am told a fact, I agree with it, that 's all."

' * Do the Germans always tell facts ? ' ' spoke Pavel Petr6-
vich, and his face assumed a disinterested, distant expression,
just as if he had retired to some cloudy height.

* * Not all, ' ' answered Bazarov with a slight yawn, evi-
dently not wishing to continue the discussion.

PaVel Petrovich looked at Arkadi, as if to tell him: " I
must say, your friend is a polite chap."

" As for me," he spoke again with some effort, "I, sinful
man, am not particularly fond of the Germans. Not to men-
tion the Russian Germans: we all know what kind of birds
they are. But I cannot stomach even the German Ger-
mans. Those of the former generations were not half so
bad; they then had, well, a Schiller, or let us say, a Goethe

Brother thinks quite favourably of them. But now

there is such a procession of chemists and materialists over
there "

" A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any
poet," Bazarov interrupted him.

"Indeed!" spoke Pavel Petrovich, barely raising his
eyebrows, as if falling asleep. ' * So you do not acknowledge
art?"

' ' The art to make money, or no more hemorrhoids ! ' ' ex-
claimed Bazarov with a contemptuous smile.

"Yes, yes. How you please yourself to jest! So you
deny all that ? Very well. So you believe only in science ? ' '

" I have already reported to you that I believe in nothing.
What is science anyway, science in general ? There are

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 287

sciences, as there are trades and professions; but science in
general does not exist at all! "

"Very well, sir. Well, and do you assume the same
negative attitude in regard to all the other institutions, gen-
erally accepted in human existence ? ' '

' ' What is this, an inquest ? ' ' asked Bazarov.

Pavel Petrovich grew slightly pale. Nikolay Petrovich
thought it necessary to take part in the conversation.

' * We will discuss this matter more thoroughly some other
time, dear Evgeni Vasflich; we shall then get your view,
and we shall tell you ours. I, for my part, am very glad to
hear that you busy yourself with the natural sciences. I
have heard that Liebig has made some remarkable discov-
eries in regard to the fertilisation of the fields. You could
aid me in my agronomic work by giving me some useful
advice."

" I am at your service, Nikolay Petr6vich; but what busi-
ness have we with Liebig ? We must first learn the ABC,
and then we may take to books; we have not yet put our
eyes on A."

"I should say you are a nihilist," thought Nikolay
Petr6vich. " Still, let me in case of necessity have recourse
to you," he added aloud. " But for the present, brother, I
think it is time for us to go and have a talk with the
steward."

Pavel Petrovich rose from his chair.

" Yes," he said, without looking at anyone, " it is a mis-
fortune to live five years in the country, away from great
minds! You will just become a round fool. You are trying
not to forget what you have learned, and, before you know
it, it turns out that it is all nonsense, and you are told that
clever people no longer busy themselves with such trifles,
and that you, sir, are an old-fashioned night-cap. What is
to be done? It seems the younger generation is really
more clever than we are."

Pdvel Petr6vich slowly turned upon his heels and walked
away leisurely. Nikolay Petr6vich went after him.

"Say, is he always that way?" Bazarov coolly asked

288 The Nineteenth Century

Arkadi, when the door was closed behind the two
brothers.

* ' I/isten, Evgeni, you have treated him altogether too
brusquely, ' ' remarked Arkadi. * * You have offended him. ' '

" I am not going to pamper these county aristocrats! It
is with them nothing but egotism, manners of society lions,
dandyism ! Well, he ought to have continued his activities
in St. Petersburg, if he is built that way— However,
God be with him ! I have found a fairly rare specimen of a
water beetle, — Dysticus marginatus, do you know it? I '11
show it to you ! ' '

They began to talk about one of the landowners of

the neighbourhood.

" A scoundrel, a snob of an aristocrat," calmly remarked
Bazarov who had met him in St. Petersburg.

' ' Permit me to ask you, ' ' began Pavel Petr6vich, and his
lips quivered, " according to your conception, the words
'scoundrel' and 'aristocrat' mean one and the same thing ? "

"I said 'snob of an aristocrat,'" remarked Bazarov,
lazily sipping his tea.

"Just so. But I suppose you are of the same opinion
about aristocrats, as you are about snobs. I regard it my
duty to inform you that I do not share that opinion of yours.
I dare say, I am known as a liberal man and one who loves
progress, and it is for that very reason that I respect aristo-
crats, that is, real aristocrats. Remember, dear sir" (at
these words Bazdrov turned his eyes to Pavel Petr6vich),
' * remember, dear sir, ' ' he repeated with acrimony, * ' the
English aristocrats. They do not jdeld an iota from their
privileges, and therefore they respect the rights of others.
They demand the fulfilment of obligations towards them,
and therefore they fulfil their own obligations. The aristoc-
racy gave England its freedom, and the aristocracy supports
it."

" We have heard that old song before," replied Bazarov.
" But what do you wish to prove by it ? "

' ' I wish to prove by that there thing, dear sir ' ' (when Pavel
Petrovich got angry, he purposely said ' ' that there ' ' and

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 289

' ' this here, ' ' although he knew full well that grammar did
not permit any such forms. In this oddity one might per-
ceive a reminiscence of the traditions of the days of Alexan-
der I. The somebodies of those days were in the habit of
using " that there " and " that yer," in the rare cases when
they spoke their native language, as much as to say : * * We
are native Russes, and at the same time dignitaries, who
have a right to disdain scholastic rules ")> " I wish to prove
by that there thing that without the feeling of one's own dig-
nity, without respect to oneself,— and in an aristocrat these
feelings are developed, — there is no secure foundation of so-
ciety— bien public — the social structure. Individuality, dear
sir, — that is the main thing: human individuality must be
as strong as a rock, for everything rests upon it. I know
very well, that you please yourself to find my habits, my
toilet, in fine, my cleanliness, ridiculous, but it all flows
from my feeling of self-respect, from my feeling of duty, yes,
sir, yes, sir — duty. I am living in the country, in the wilder-
ness, but I do not let myself fall — I respect the man in me."

"Permit me to say, Pavel Petrovich," spoke Bazarov,
" you claim to respect yourself, and yet you sit with folded
hands ; what good is that to the bien public ? It would be
better, if you respected yourself less, and did more."

Pavel Petrovich grew pale. * * That is an entirely different
question. It is not my duty to explain to you now, why I
am sitting with folded hands, as you please to express your-
self. I only want to say that aristocratism is a principle,
and in our days only immoral and brainless people can live
without principles. I told Arkadi so on the next day after
his arrival, and I repeat it to you. Am I not right,
Nikolay?"

Nikolay Petrovich nodded his head.

" Aristocratism, liberalism, progress, principles," Bazarov
was saying in the meantime. * ' Just think how many foreign
and useless words! A good Russian would not take them
gratis."

" Then what does he want, according to you ? Listening
to you, one might conclude that we are living beyond the

VOL. II.— 19.

290 The Nineteenth Century

pale of humanity, beyond its laws. Why, sir, the logic of
history demands "

' ' What do you want to do with that logic ? We are get-
ting along without it. ' '

"How so?"

" We just do. I hope you do not need any logic in order
to put a piece of bread into your mouth, when you are
hungry. What good to us are all these abstractions ? "

Pavel Petrovich waved his hands.

' ' After that I do not understand you. You insult the
Russian nation. I can't understand how one can fail to ac-
knowledge principles and rules 1 By dint of what do you act?' '

* ' I told you before, uncle, that we do not acknowledge
any authorities," interposed Arkddi.

"We act by dint of what we regard as useful," spoke
Bazdrov. " At the present time the most useful thing is
negation, — we negate."

"Everything?"

"Everything!"

"What? Not only art, poetry but it is terrible

to say it "

" Everything," repeated Bazarov with inexpressible calm.

Pavel Petrovich stared at him. He had not expected
that, while Arkddi even blushed with joy.

" But permit me to ask you," again said Pavel Petrovich,
"you deny everything, or, to express myself more correctly,
you destroy everything — but is it not necessary to build up
again?"

' ' That is not our affair. First, the place has to be
cleared."

" The contemporary condition of the people demands it,"
Arkadi added with dignity. " We must execute these de-
mands; we have no right to devote ourselves to the satis-
faction of our personal egotism."

This last phrase evidently displeased Bazdrov : it smacked
of philosophy, that is, of Romanticism, for Bazdrov called
philosophy Romanticism; but he did not think it necessary
to contradict his young disciple.

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 291

* ' No, no ! " exclaimed Pavel Petrovich in a sudden passion.
" I do not wish to believe that you, gentlemen, properly
understand the Russian nation, that you are the representa-
tives of its needs, its aims ! No, the Russian nation is not
as you represent it to yourselves. It reveres tradition, it is
patriarchal, it cannot live without faith "

"I will not dispute that," interrupted Bazarov; "lam
even willing to admit that you are right in this. ' '

"And if I am right "

" And yet it proves nothing."

" That 's it, it proves nothing," repeated Arkadi with the
confidence of an experienced chess player who, foreseeing the
apparently dangerous move of his antagonist, does not be-
come in the least uneasy.

"How does it not prove anything?" muttered Pavel
Petr6vich in wonderment. " So you are going against your
nation?"

" What of it, if I do ? People imagine that when it thun-
ders the prophet Elias is riding in a chariot over the heavens.
Well ? Shall I agree with them ? Besides, they are Rus-
sians, and am I not myself a Russian ? ' '

" No, you are not a Russian, after what you have just told
me! I cannot acknowledge you as a Russian."

" My grandfather was a ploughman," replied Bazarov
with supercilious pride. ' ' Ask any of your peasants, in
whom he will quicker recognise a countryman of his, in
you or me ? You do not even know how to talk with him."

' ' But you speak with him and despise him at the same
time."

11 Why not, if he deserves contempt ! You find fault with
my tendency, but who told you that it is accidental in me ?
that it is not provoked by the same national spirit that you
are championing ? "

" Well, of what good are the nihilists ? "

"It is not for you to decide whether they are any good
or not. Don't you regard yourself useful ? "

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please no personalities!" ex-
claimed Nikolay Petrovich, rising from his chair.

292 The Nineteenth Century

Pdvel Petrovich smiled and, putting his hand on his
brother's shoulder, compelled him to sit down again.

11 Don't worry," he said. " I will not forget myself, by
dint of that very feeling of dignity that the gentleman, the
doctor, makes so light of. Permit me," he turned again
towards Bazarov, ' ' you probably think that your doctrine is
something new. But you imagine that in vain. The
materialism which you preach has been in vogue more than
once, and it has always proved itself insufficient ' '

"Again a foreign word!" interrupted Bazarov. He be-
gan to feel annoyed and his face assumed a coarse coppery
colour. " First of all, we preach nothing; that is not our
custom ' '

* ' Then what are you doing ? ' '

"I '11 tell you what we do. In former days, not so long
ago, we used to say that the officials take bribes, that we
have no roads, no commerce, no regular justice."

1 l Yes, yes, you are accusers, I think that is what you call
it. I agree with many of your accusations, but ' '

" Then we came to the conclusion that to prate, nothing
but prate, about our sores is not worth the trouble, that it
only leads to triteness and doctrinarianism ; we discovered
that our wise men, the so-called leaders and accusers, were
good for nothing, that we were busying ourselves with
nonsense, were talking of art, unconscious creative power,
parliamentarism, of legalism, and the devil knows of what
not, when we ought to have talked of the daily bread, when
we were oppressed by most vulgar superstition, when all
our commercial companies burst only because there was a
dearth of honest men, when the very liberty with which
the Government is concerned would hardly do us any
good, because our peasants would as lief rob themselves,
if only they could fill themselves with brandy in the
tavern."

"Ah," Pavel Petrovich interrupted him, " ah! You have
convinced yourself of all that, and so you have decided not
to do anything seriously ? "

' ' And we decided not to undertake anything, ' ' grimly re-

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 293

peated Bazarov. He suddenly felt irritated for having
entered into a dispute with that gentleman.

1 'And only to scoff?"

"To scoff."

" And that is called nihilism."

* * And that is called nihilism, ' ' again repeated Bazarov,
but this time with special rudeness.

Pavel Petrovich slightly closed his eyes.

"Ah, that 's the way!" he said with a strangely calm
voice. " Nihilism is to help all misery, and you — you — are
our deliverers and heroes. Yes. But why do you hold
others in honour, say, those very accusers ? Or do you not
prate like the rest ? ' '

" You may accuse us of anything else, but not of that,"
said Bazarov through his teeth.

" Well ? You act, don't you ? You are getting ready to
act?"

Bazarov did not answer. Pavel Petr6vich shuddered, but
he immediately controlled himself.

" Hm! — Act, break — " he continued. " But how are you
going to break, not knowing for what purpose ? ' '

" We break, because we are a force," remarked Arkadi.

Pavel Petr6vich glanced at his nephew and smiled.

"Yes, force does not give any accounts of itself," said
Arkadi straightening himself out.

' * Miserable man ! ' ' lamented Pdvel Petr6vich. He was
absolutely unable to hold himself any longer. ' ' If you only
thought what you are supporting in Russia by your despica-
ble phrase ? No, that would make an angel lose his patience !
Force! A wild Calmuck, a Mongolian has force too, but of
what good is it to us? We treasure civilisation, yes, sir,
yes, sir, dear sir, we treasure its fruits. Don't tell me that
these fruits are worthless. The last latherer, un barbouilleur,
a fiddler who gets five kopeks for an evening, are more use-
ful than you, because they are the representatives of a civili-
sation, and not of a rude Mongolian force! You regard
yourselves as leaders, but you ought to pass your days in a
Calmuck tent ! Force ! Remember, gentlemen of force, that

294 The Nineteenth Century

there are only four and a half of you, and there are millions
of others who will not permit you to tread under foot their
most sacred beliefs and who will crush you. ' '

11 If they will crush us, then that is our destiny," spoke
Bazdrov. " Only you are slightly off. We are not as few
as you imagine. ' '

* ' What ? You think in earnest you will be able to stand
out against a whole nation ? ' '

* c You know, it was a kopek candle that caused the con-
flagration of Moscow," replied Bazarov.

1 ' Yes, yes. First it is an almost satanic pride, and then
contemptuous scoffing. That 's what the young generation
is carried away with, that 's what conquers the inexperi-
enced hearts of boys! Just look at them: one of them is
sitting by your side; he almost worships you, — look at him.
(Arkadi turned away and frowned. ) This plague has spread
far and wide. I have been told that our artists won't visit
the Vatican in Rome, that they regard Raphael almost as a
fool, because, don't you see, he is an authority; but they
themselves are impotent and barren to nausea ; their fancy
does not rise above a Girl at the Fountain, try as they may !
And the girl is horribly painted at that. In your opinion
they are a fine lot, are they not ? ' '

" In my opinion," retorted Bazarov, " Raphael is not
worth a copper penny, and they are not better than he."

" Bravo! Bravo! Listen, Arkddi! That 's the way
modern young men must express themselves ! When I come
to think of it, why should they not follow you! Formerly
young men had to study; they did not like to pass for
ignoramuses, and so they worked, even against their will.
But all they have to say now is: " Everything in the world
is bosh! " and that 's all there is to it. The young people
are happy. And really, formerly they were nothing but
blockheads, but now they have suddenly turned nihilists. ' '

"There, your vaunted feeling of your personal dignity
has played you false," phlegmatically remarked Bazdrov,
while Arkadi flamed up and his eyes glistened. " Our dis-
cussion has gone too far It seems it would be better to

Ivan Sergyeevich Turgenev 295

cut it short altogether. I will then be ready to agree with
you, ' ' he added, rising, * * when you will show me one single
institution in our present existence, social or domestic, which
does not call for a complete and merciless negation."

" I will show you millions of such institutions," exclaimed
Pavel Petrovich, "millions! For example, the village
commune."

A cold smile contorted Bazarov's lips.

"When it comes to the commune," he said, "you had
better have a talk with your brother. He, it seems, has
discovered in practice what kind of a thing the commune is,
and communal responsibility, temperance, and similar fine
things."

' * The family, if you please, the family, as it exists with
our peasants! " cried Pdvel Petrovich.

" It would be better, I suppose, not to enter into the de-
tails of that affair. Listen, Pdvel Petrovich, give yourself
two days' time ; you will hardly find anything before that
time. Run over all our conditions of life, consider them all
well, while, in the meantime, Arkadi and I will ' '

" Make light of everything," interrupted Pavel Petrovich.

* * No, cut up frogs. Come, Arkddi ! Good-bye, gentle-
men ! ' '

Both friends went out.

POEMS IN PROSE (SENILIA)

NATURE

I dreamt that I entered an enormous subterranean hall
with high vaults. It was all filled with an even, subter-
ranean light.

In the very centre of the hall sat a majestic woman in a
flowing garment of a green colour. Bending her head on
her hand, she seemed to be buried in deep meditation.

I saw at once that that woman was Nature herself, and,
with a sudden chill, a reverential awe entered my soul.

I approached the woman who was sitting there, and
making a respectful bow: "O our common mother!" I

296 The Nineteenth Century

exclaimed. ' ' What are you meditating on ? Are you, per-
chance, pondering on the future destiny of the human race ?
Or, how it may reach the highest possible perfection and
happiness ? ' '

The woman slowly turned to me her dark, piercing eyes.
Her lips moved, and there issued from them a ringing voice,
like the clanking of iron.

' ' I am thinking how to add greater strength to the muscles
of a flea's legs, that it may more easily save itself from its
enemies. The equilibrium between attack and defence has
been impaired It must be re-established."

"What?" I lisped an answer. "Is that what you are
thinking about? But are we not, men, your favourite
children?"

The woman barely frowned : * * All creatures are my child-
ren," she spoke, "and I take equal care of them, and
equally exterminate them."

" But goodness — reason — justice " I muttered again.

" Those are human words," was heard the woman's voice.

" I know neither good nor evil Reason is not my law,

and what is justice ? I have given you life, and I will take

it from you and will give it to others, worms or men it

makes no difference to me You defend yourself in the

meantime, and do not bother me! "

I wanted to retort— but the earth around me gave a dull
groan and trembled, and I awoke.

Dmitri Vasilevich Grigor6vich. (1822-1900.)

Grigor6vich was the son of a landed proprietor, and was born in a
village on the V61ga, in the Government of Simbirsk. His early
childhood he passed at home ; at ten years of age he entered a board-
ing school in Moscow, and later the School of Engineers, where he
studied at the same time as his friend Dostoevski. Having become
infatuated with art, he transferred himself to the Academy of Arts
and there studied drawing for two years. He began writing in 1844,
and attracted the attention of the public and of the critic Byelinski
by his sketches from the life of the serfs, The Village and Antdn the
Miserable. These were followed by a large number of shorter stories
and two novels, The Fishermen and The Emigrants ; they mainly

Dmitri Vasilevich Grigorovich 297

excel for their artistic landscape painting, in which they abound.
His warm advocacy of emancipation and his sympathetic descriptions
of peasant life have earned for him the name of the Russian Beecher-
Stowe.

Two of his stories have been translated into English : Cruel City,
after the Russian, with a sketch of the author, by E. de Pierson (Sun-
shine Series, No. 84), London and New York, 1891 ; New Year's Eve
(Railway and General Automatic Library), London, [1892].

FROM "THE FISHERMEN"

A gloomy, grey day. The vault of heaven looks as
though lowered, as though pensively reposing over the
silent earth. If it were not for the warmth of the air, the
nascent odour of budding verdure, one might have thought
spring had suddenly been changed into autumn. There are
many such days in the beginning of spring. They re-
semble the fair, pensive face of a young girl. All Nature
suddenly grows still, like a lively child in the open, who,
having abandoned himself to noisy, boisterous merriment,
and not trusting his strength, suddenly throws himself tired
on the grass and sleeps a sweet sleep.

In such days you will not hear a sound. Everything liv-
ing seems to hold its breath, to get ready for something, to
collect its strength for a noisy celebration of the summer.
The flocks are silent, as if intoxicated by the strong aroma
of the unfolding plants, which, lacking the sunrays, is
spreading over the ground ; the animals are reclining on the
succulent grass, and hang their heads, or lazily wander
about. The birds dreamily slumber on the branches that
are permeated by their fresh, young sap; the insects are hid
under the tree-bark, or have crept into the narrow seams of
the moss that, in an infinitely diminished form, resembles
impassable fir forests; not a fly buzzes in the air; the air
itself seems to be afraid to break the solemn quiet, and
touches not a blade, nor even raises the light down that is
left in the meadows by the young, newly hatched goslings.

Nothing can be more poetical than such days ! A delicate,
happily tuned ear can distinguish, midst this dead silence, a

298 The Nineteenth Century

measured, harmonious singing. Your soul is filled with an
inexpressibly pleasant sensation. But not ecstatic agitation
nor pensive sorrow (in which there is a charm of their own)
takes possession of your soul : no ! your blood and brain are
in perfect composure; you simply feel happy; your whole
being involuntarily recognises the possibility of quiet,
peaceful enjoyments, of a modest, intimate life with your-
self,— a life which you have been, perchance, long seeking
in vain ; the capitals, with their din, splendour, and entice-
ments, do not exist for you : they appear so small that you
do not even notice them. In such moments your heart is
light and free, as in the first years of happy youth; not one
evil thought will enter your head. You are satisfied with
yourself, satisfied with your feelings, satisfied with your
loneliness, and you bless Providence for having given you
a chance to live, breathe, and feel.

It was just such a day when Vanyusha, early in the morn-
ing, bade his family farewell. The landscape, it seemed,
had assumed the most gloomy and grey appearance in order
to rouse in the heart of the lad as little regret as possible in
parting with familiar places. The fisherman's family was
standing in the yard : it was not numerous now, for Peter,
Vasili, and their wives and children had left the day before.
There were there in all: Glyeb, his old wife, his son, the
adopted child, and Grandfather Kondrati, who had come to
see Vanyusha off.

We find them during the most fateful and oppressive
minute. The gate that leads out to the small square is
already open ; grandfather Kondrati has already taken back
to the cabin the old ikon with which the parents have blessed
their son. It is only left to say: "Come! " but old Glyeb is
still hesitating. Grishka has meanwhile told the companion
of his youth good-bye ; he is standing some distance away ;
his head is bent, his brows are knit, but his dark eyes, which
are stealthily directed now to one side of the yard, now to
another, clearly indicate that his sorrowful look is assumed
only by necessity, to fit the occasion, and that he does not
share the family's grief.

Dmitri Vasilevich Grigorovich 299

None of those present this minute think of the adopted
child. Aunt Anna tightly clasps the neck of her beloved
child with both her hands; the face of the old woman is still
more tightly pressed against his breast; in a weak, dying
voice she pronounces a disconnected parting prayer. Before
them Glyeb is standing; his eyes are dry; he utters no com-
plaints, no accusations, no bitter words of blame, but his
hands folded over his breast, the drooping head, the furrows,
which one cannot count upon his high brow, sufficiently in-
dicate that the soul of the old fisherman is passing through
a heavy trial. In vain Grandfather Kondrati, whom Glyeb
always respected and obeyed, tries to console him, calling to
his aid soul-saving words: the words of the old man are
powerless now; they act upon Glyeb as upon a half-witted
person : he hears every word of the grandfather, distinguishes
every sound of his voice, but does not retain them in his
memory. Glyeb is still unable to collect his thoughts: in
the last three days the old man had passed through so much
sorrow! The acts of his children have effaced from his
memory the whole sixty years of a quiet, undisturbed, one
may even say, happy life. But however much one may
think, or feel grieved, nothing is gained by it, and time
passes. * ' Come ! ' ' says Glyeb.

Grandfather Kondrati warily unclasps the hands of the
old woman who thoughtlessly and speechlessly is hanging
about the neck of her son; Aunt Anna has wept her last
strength away with her last tears. Vanya transfers her from
his hands to the hands of Kondrdti, hastily throws a bundle
with his possession over his shoulder, makes the sign of the
cross and, without raising his tearful eyes, hurries after his
father who meanwhile has bent around the corner of the
cabin. A despairing, heartrending cry, uttered behind
him, chains the young lad to the spot.

"V^nya!— Vdnya!"

" Cease, mother do not grieve so God is merciful ! "

says he, embracing the old woman who is grasping him in
her hands like an insensate person.

But the consolations are in vain ! Grandfather Kondrdti

300 The Nineteenth Century

and Vanya continue their path, while supporting Anna.
Now, they have already passed the garden, and now, they
have crossed the brook. This brook, witness of youthful
years, serves as the last threshold of the paternal house.
Now, they have already reached the footpath, and they be-
gin to ascend the hill. Memories are crowding in the soul
of the young lad; with every advancing step there is a new
parting.

However much the young fisherman strengthened himself
with the thought that by his action he had saved his old
father from injustice and had freed him from a heavy sin,
however strong his faith in Providence was, yet he could
not restrain his tears that of their own accord coursed down
his youthful cheeks. It is, indeed, hard for the first time to
part from your paternal home, and you cannot control your
heart: it will not listen to reason, and is not deceived by
fancies and hopes.

It is even more difficult for a common man to leave his
native roof, than for any other person. No matter how
wretched the cabin of the poor man may be, he is attached
to it with all his feelings, with all his soul. The attachment
of the educated man for material objects to which he has be-
come accustomed, his attachment for his house and his soil,
is quite insignificant in comparison with the attachment of
the common man for the same objects with which he is fa-
miliar. This is easily explained : the mental and spiritual
life which more or less absolves man from a coarse material-
ism is very limited in the common man. Living almost ex-
clusively a material, carnal life, he, so to say, grows one
with every object which surrounds him, with every log of
his ca^in; he was born there, he has passed his life there
without interruption; not one thought has drawn him away
beyond the confines of his native hut : on the contrary, all
his thoughts have been directed to the one object of never
leaving his home. The Russian peasant is pre-eminently a
lover of his family, and domestic in his habits.

I had once occasion to see a ploughman's family who
were of their own free will emigrating to the fertile southern

Dmitri Vasilevich Grigorovich 301

Governments, bidding farewell to their field, — miserable two
desyatinas of clayey, almost worthless, soil. I have in all
my life not seen such a terrible parting, such terrible tears !
A mother, who parts from her beloved children, does not
embrace them so passionately and does not kiss them so
warmly, as these peasants kissed the earth that had sup-
ported them so many years. It seemed as though they left
themselves in these two plots. Pieces of earth were even
sewed into the amulets of the suckling babes !

The common man bows to habit : when he parts from his
house, he parts from everything that binds him to the soil.
He has lived in his exclusive, limited sphere; there are no
interests for him outside of his home; he looks with suspicion
at the world which transcends the limits of his customary,
narrow conceptions. When he leaves his home, he does not
strengthen himself, as we do, with dreams and hopes: he
positively knows only this, — that he is leaving his home, that
he is leaving everything which binds him to life, and there-
fore he abandons himself with all his feelings, with all his
soul to grief.

Having reached the summit of the high ridge of the river
bank, from which the deceased Uncle Akim had once timidly
descended with Grishka to the cabin of the old fisherman,
Glyeb stopped. It was not the rapid ascent that had tired
him : he would rather have walked more rapidly, and would
have gone higher up. A strange weight rested upon the
old man's heart; he wished to walk a hundred versts with-
out stopping, if the exhaustion would only allay the per-
sistent pining that was gnawing at his heart. When Vanya
and Grandfather Kondrati, who were still supporting Anna,
had ascended the hill, Glyeb went up to them:

"Why did you bring her here?" said he impatiently:
" it will not make things easier. Well, old woman, that
will do — say farewell, and the Lord be with you ! Too much
parting, — too much weeping! Well, good-bye! "

" Good-bye, mother! " muttered the son, and for the first
time he could not control himself, and for the first time
burst out into tears: he wept bitterly, like a small boy.

302 The Nineteenth Century

The old woman shuddered at this sight: her oblivion dis-
appeared, her strength was resurrected. Drawing aside with
her lean hands the kerchief which covered her head, she cast
a senseless glance on all present, as if not yet quite conscious
of what was happening, and then she suddenly, with the
rapidity of lightning, threw herself on her son, and placed
her hands over his head. The cry that accompanied that
motion cut as with a knife the hearts of the two old men.
People of Grandfather Kondrati's age do not weep: all the
tears have been wept, and their source itself has long ago
dried up. But Glyeb had yet seen little grief; and so his
strength left him. However much Glyeb fortified himself,
however much he turned his head aside, and knit his brows,
large teardrops of their own will burst from his eyes and
silvered still more his grey beard. He waved his hand and
walked ahead more rapidly. Vanya tore himself away from
the embrace of his mother and ran after him, all the time
making the sign of the cross.

" Vanya! Vanya!"

The old woman started after her son; but her legs gave
way. She fell upon her knees and extended her hands be-
fore her.

Vdnya meanwhile continued to follow his father. Only
once did he turn back: the cabins, the small squares, the
brook, the boats, the nets,— all had disappeared! At the
edge of the hill, which hid the indentation of the shore that
served him for his native place, he saw only Kondrati's white
head leaning over something prostrate in the road. Beyond
them, in the limitless depth, he saw the distant meadows.
From this height Grandfather Kondrdti's little lake appeared
as in the palm of the hand: a white moving dot glinted
through the verdure that surrounded the lake in a dark
strip. Vanya almost stopped, but immediately turned his
head aside, made the sign of the cross, and walked on more
rapidly. When he found himself within a few steps from
his father, he did not hold out, and turned back once more;
but this time the eyes of the young lad no longer met familiar
places: everything had disappeared behind the hill, the dark

Yakov Petrovich Polonski 303

ridge of which rested against the gloomy, grey, cheerless sky.
Farewell, mother! Farewell home, childhood, memories,
— farewell everything !

Ydkov Petr6vich Pol6nski. (1820-1898).

Pol6nski was born in the city of Ryazdn, where he graduated from
the Gymnasium. After that he studied law at the Moscow Univers-
ity, and in 1844 he published his first collection of poems, under the
title of Gamuts. Then began for him years of restless wanderings in
Russia and abroad, in his attempt to earn his daily bread. Upon his
return to St. Petersburg, in 1859, he became an editor of a periodical,
and soon after he was made a member in the Board of Foreign Cen-
sorship. His genius has been characterised by Turge"nev as follows :
"His talent represents a special, quite individual mixture of simple-
hearted grace, a free picturesqueness of language, upon which still
rests a reflection of Pushkin's elegance, and a certain amiable, though
frequently awkward, honesty and truthfulness of impressions. At
times he, almost unconsciously to himself, surprises one with the
sharpness of his poetic vision." Many of his lyrics belong to the
most popular of songs in Russia, and have been set to music. Of his
longer poems, the fantastic tale Musician Grasshopper enjoys the
greatest popularity.

But little of Pol6nski has been translated. In C. T. Wilson's
Russian Lyrics are given The Birds, Night in the Crimea, The Sun
and the Moon, The Guardian Angel ; in John Pollen's Rhymes from
the Russian, — On Skobelev (reprinted in the Library of the World's
Best Literature); in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 21, by
H. Havelock, Love scared thee not, and To the fond heart that pas-
sionately loveth; in Free Russia, vol. xii, No. n, by Charlotte
Sidgwick, A Vision.

THE BIRDS

The smell of fields pervades the air,

And in the peaceful sky
Are heard the lays of tuneful birds,

Resounding far and high.

Each has its mate, with whom it spends

The hours of day and night ;
In unmown fields, and growing grass,

Their homes are their delight.

304 The Nineteenth Century

Up in the skies they pour their notes,

Fired with enraptured song;
But, still, to earth, though not for bread,

The free birds all belong.

While thus I listen to their voice,

Vexation stirs my mind ;
Their happy lot with envy fills

The hearts of all mankind.

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

NIGHT IN THE CRIMEA

Bear'st thou in mind the moon's glimmering light,

On rocks the waves dashing with sullen roar,
The rustling trees with sleepy leaves adight,
The chirruping crickets in the fields anight,
Close by the garden, on the sea-girt shore ?

In twilight soft, beneath the garden's shade,

We wandered; scent of laurel filled the air;
We saw a grotto in the vineyard made,
And water falling, as we careless strayed,
Which sounded sweetly in the basin there.

Dost thou recall the freshness of the hour,

The smell of roses, and the murmuring brooks ?
All Nature seemed entranced with magic power,
And at each other, in the perfumed bower
Sitting, gazed we with absorbing looks.

The music flowing from all Nature's smiles,

The melody working in the awakened soul,
This have I heard mid all the cozening wiles
Of life, — in direst storms, — and it beguiles
My aching heart, and fills my spirit whole.

Yakov Petrovich Polonski 305

I lent unto the chords attentive ear,

While my mind warmed to the beauteous sound,
Which touched my senses with triumphant cheer;
I listened till it drew me ever near,

And all my soul with joyous rapture bound.

—From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

Love scared thee not, for early thy heart ripened;
His was thy trust, and now thou mourn 'st alone.
O hapless, hopeless prey of lies and passion,
Burst thou their net, and fear not any blame !

The blame of men, their feigned reprobation,
Heed not, nor weep, but clear thy clouded eyes.
Not I thy judge, thy headsman, though I know it
That with a laugh malice thy doom has signed.

Has not each one of us been passion's plaything ?
Will nought but death assuage thine enemies' scorn ?
Will e'en thy friends not cease thy soul to torture ?
Feed not the fire, and malice self must die.

And all that in thee was of pure, of holy,
Of dear, shall sacred be to those that love thee,
And rich as ever shall thy generous heart be,
And thou shalt love as erst and, loving, smile.

— Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian
Literary Society, No. 21.

FROM " MUSICIAN GRASSHOPPER"

Not the blustering cricket chirping at the stove I sing:
my hero is a small grasshopper. He was of small size, but
oblong in shape, anjd wore over his back a greenish frock;
he was thin-legged, lank, and broad of brow, and he was a
real genius, had a special gift: he was famed as a musician

VOL. II. — 20.

306 The Nineteenth Century

among all the insects, and he often invited his friends to hear
his concerts. He lived under the luxuriant grass in the
open field, and drowned the air with the eternal piping of
his orchestra. The frivolous tribe of hoppers has forgotten
that at that time he was the representative of good taste and
music.

Everything which the rustic dweller nowadays hears out-
side the window, as he lies upon his bed, or as he walks out
on the balcony in his morning gown, — this crackling piping,
this discordant din that is over everything, — so dry and yet
so tender, — if in this gloomy concert there is at all any glow-
ing voluptuousness and rapture, — believe me, — those are the
bygone, eternal creations, or imitations, of my hero.

Poor little grasshopper, your genius is forgotten! But
you have passed your life not without adventures. I know
you did not in vain pass for an idealist: you used to sit down
in the silvery light of the moon, under the canopy of night,
upon a grassblade broken by the wind. Though the bend-
ing ears are not lightly broken, yet the naughty wind
crushes many of them in the wavy meadow. You used to
sit down, and with all your might you scraped upon your
fiddle, in order to glorify night. And the empty-headed
squeakers, the villainous mosquitoes, the trumpeters of the
steppe, teased you, and ladybirds fell in love with you, and
envy roiled many a little head with the same musical inclina-
tion and with the same eagerness, but not with the same
ability. And the gnat threatened to kill, by means of science,
the sounds which you produced, and the weighty June-bug
repeatedly assured all that it was pleasant to moisten the
ears at your concert, for otherwise the ears would dry up,
like the grass, from the terrible drouth.

In your private life you have frequently been put in an
awkward position by the good little ladybirds, flies, and
little bugs: you listened to their confessions, and timidly
avoided secret meetings with them. Nothing, however, dis-
turbed your calm; no sting appearecj^ injurious to your
talent : you were unconquerable in the musical world.

Little linden trees, — that was something in the nature of a

Yakov Petrovich Polonski 307

park; in the centre — a pond, and at the entrance — a bower
of branches, unquestionably a marvel of perfection; it was
so spacious that — just think of it — two hundred insects
could enter it in a row. Hang me if I am telling an un-
truth! The architect of it — I will not conceal it — was
Nature herself; only I do not know who paid her for the
work; however, we are not concerned here about Nature.
Lest the journalists should peck us to death, I will confess
that it was hardly possible to describe the staircase under
the yellow carpet of moss, which was worn through in spots;
nor the gloomy antechamber, where the lackeys could re-
main from early morning without their boots, but not with-
out their liveries; nor the parlour, where some mould, like
stalactites, stuck to the cornices and was wound about with
verdure. An acquaintance of mine, a Russian architect,
saw in this parlour a bit of Etruscan art, and — I remember
it well — he boasted, without blushing, that the idea had
struck him in that parlour tastefully to adorn lordly rooms
by covering the wall-paper with white mould.

However, the house of the sylphid, to be sternly critical
about the style, resembled somewhat a hole in a tree. The
grasshopper was so charmed, or his heart was so electrified,
that he trembled and wasted away as he silently waited for
the sylphid, while standing at the window and looking at
the sights. The sylphid was flitting about with someone
in the garden, and having a chat with pleasant guests.
These guests were worms of various appellations, and they
lay in the grass in the form of hooks. A black-skinned
little bedbug, doubtless the porter's son, or the nurse's
grand-child — a godchild of the gentlefolk — announced to
the sylphid that a certain lank gentleman was waiting for
her in the drawing-room.

My hero was called in. His bow was returned with a
smile, and he heard the muttering: " Very, very happy !"
The ladies examined his whole figure, and hardly could
withhold their laughter: they only looked askance at the
gentlemen. But the worms did not stir, for someone had
so dreadfully narrowed down their brains that they need only

308 The Nineteenth Century

look at the decoration on the ribbon or around the neck, in
order not to pay any attention to the rest, and remain in
haughty calm.

The artist's calling familiarises the soul with all kinds of
meetings; but my hero was not accustomed to the manners
of the charming insects of the higher order. Living at a
distance from the garden, poor, sickly, and pale, he wore
from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet the imprint
of the field upon him. There clouds alone raise their voice,
and the harvest waves its ears, and the grain waits for the
scythe.

I know, O grasshopper, how well you were received by the
butterfly. You acted proudly, as if you had spent all your
life in higher society, though from early childhood you had
never travelled except in your own carriage. But tell me,
what became of you on that evening, and what inexpressible
feeling compressed your soul, and what thoughts ardently
possessed your genial brow, as you departed from the park
and took your fieldward way over the tufts ? Will you say,
or — shall we put down periods ?

Departing day wept behind the mountain, and, shedding
tears, cast a warm glow upon the edge of the meadow, from
behind the dark grove. Night came in the track of day,
and mingling lights were reflected and, quivering, wandered
over her cheeks. Softly came out the lights, the heralds of
the moon, lighting the tapers before the throne of God. Far
and wide the sea of the tremulous harvest grew dark ; the
melancholy birch embraced the linden tree; the grove grew
silent; only the oak whispered, and the woodpecker some-
where tapped his strong beak, and somewhere a rivulet lisped
sadly, — only fateful passions were not asleep, and only the
irrepressible world of insects vociferated without cessation in
the sleepless silence. The (lies hummed, the mosquitoes
trumpeted; those whom the grasshopper led in the chorus
merrily scraped their fiddles, evidently knowing their music
even without candles. In front of the orchestra, he scraped
his fiddle loudest of all, in honour of his queen. It was the
marriage of the butterfly's cousin, and the bridegroom was

Yakov Petrovich Polonski 309

a fine fellow with a long mouthpiece; of course, he was not
mentally quick, but he came from a family of select worms.
According to the bride's words, he was intolerable only be-
cause he indiscriminately compared the odour of old pines
with the vernal fragrance of violets, and because he respected
the brier and was afraid of jackdaws.

But what do we care for this nonsense ? The ball was
magnificent. The choirs bubbled over with sounds. Dozens
of Spanish flies in golden liveries burnt incense in murky
avenues. Glowworms, flaming up like fire-pots and rockets,
gleamed up and down all the paths. The guests swarmed
everywhere. The butterflies flitted in the moonshine in
their ball dresses; darning-needles flashed through the air,
holding on to darning-needles; the variegated whirl of the
waltz spun around with a rustling sound; bugs circled
around the serving table; small beetles crawled about, and
the weighty persons of fashionable' society, the ladybugs,
were gathered together to show their newest dresses. Two
beetles with big bellies on short legs silently approached two
green flies. An ant, laced in a waistcoat of the latest fashion,
solemnly and carelessly bent his knees, while dancing with
a yellow ladybird. The lively sylphid flapped her little
wings : her eyes, her nose, her little feet, the pattern of her
dress, — everything in her involuntarily attracted attention.

My artistic grasshopper's soul was aflame; he did not turn
his eyes away from her and be played like a demon. At
her own request he, his heart being unchangeable, composed
this inspired dance, by whose music hop even to-day the
myriads of insects on any flower-bed of your garden, if, O
reader, the Creator has at all given you a garden, or, at
least, a garden plot.

However, the ball of the insects did not pass without a
scandal : they say, there was an evil spider in the park who,
having drawn his threads from twig to twig, made such a
devilishty clever and artistic, invisible net, that, maybe, he
had a nice little snack in secret. They say also that a lady-
bird fell down and that from fright her corset gave way.
The artist himself noticed a little spider — he looked so

310 The Nineteenth Century

innocent — throwing something like a hook over the sylphid's
wing, and trying to draw her to him, in order to find some-
where in the charming garden a place where he could pass
with her at least ten minutes in the cool shade, in silence, in
comfort, away from the bustle. But the jealous artist under-
stood his cunning, so he leaped up and tore the fateful
threads.

The spider swelled with anger; and a mosquito buzzed to
the artist : * ' See, how you have soiled yourself, as if you
had been in an improper place."

The grasshopper blushed, seeing the cobweb sticking to
his sleeve. ' * What a beast ! ' ' he grumbled, and he wiped it
off. The butterfly said not a word, and only chose another
partner for the dance: the winged gentleman was her neigh-
bour's silly brother.

" Is it true," he asked, " there is a rumour in the meadow,
that you are dead in love with the maestro ? They say that
the grasshopper wants to marry you, and that he is suing
for your hand ? ' '

" Don't say that! " said the sylphid. " My husband — a
grasshopper ! What an insult ! Who has spread this gossip ?
Or have the flies concocted this stupid thing? "

"No, not the flies at all! Someone from the orchestra
said that he heard it from the maestro. ' '

The fay controlled herself and did not show her anger
and, flapping her wings, cast a cold glance upon the musician,
and when all, to honour his talents, cried: " Bravo! Fora,
fora!" she screwed up her face or smiled, with downcast
eyes.

Aleksyey Feofildktovich Pisemski. (1820-1881.)

Pisemski was the son of poor gentlefolk in the Government of
Kostromd, where his father was an army officer. At fourteen years
of age he entered the Gymnasium, and there developed a taste for
the theatre and for writing ; after graduation he studied mathematics
at the Moscow University, but he devoted much of his time to acting
in amateur theatricals and to public readings, becoming famous as a
reader of G6gol. He began his literary career in 1847 and produced
a large number of novels and dramas. In all these he evolved a cyn-

Aleksyey Feofilaktovich Pisemski 311

ical pessimism of the extremes! kind, and unmercifully and without
reserve laid bare the moral dirt and corruption that surrounded him.
His pictures from the life of the common people, as found in The
Peter sburgian, The Faun, Bitter Fate, and A Thousand Souls, are
remarkably realistic, though harrowing in their nakedness. Having
incurred the enmity of the liberal writers of the sixties, who sus-
pected him of retrograde tendencies, he, in 1863, wrote his novel,
Troubled Waters, which roused a storm of indignation in the liberal
camp. By depicting only the underside, with all its nastiness, of the
movement of the sixties, he did great harm to progress in Russia.
After that greatest of his works, his genius began to decline, and he
died, amidst much mental and moral suffering, neglected and de-
spised by the literary coteries.

THE OLD PROPRIETRESS

The cabin which I entered was large and neat, the wood-
work was planed, the stove white, the partition made of
boards, the bench and shelves washed clean. In the front
corner, under the ikons, stood a table, behind which sat an
old man with a shaven beard, with two grey tufts of hair on
his temples, with a clever expression on his face and, evi-
dently, blind. He was dressed in a blue cloth coat of ancient
cut, underneath which could be seen a laced shirt front and
a striped cashmere vest, no doubt an ancient fashion, too.
All that old costume of his was clean and, it seemed, pre-
served in spite of time. By his side sat a neat and trim-
looking old woman, in a threadbare old hood and a chintz
capote. At first glance I thought they were poor gentlefolk.
Upon my entering, the old woman immediately rose and said
something to the old man : he raised himself, and both bowed
to me.

" Please, be seated, I shall find a place," said I.

" Never mind, sir," said the old woman with an affected
voice, brushing aside her scanty possessions in a small bag.

' ' Be seated, please, ' ' I repeated.

The old man heeded my words and, feeling the bench
with the cautiousness of a blind person, seated himself, and,
bending over his staff, fixed his dim eyes upon me. The
old woman did not sit down but continued standing in a re-
spectful attitude. I guessed they were not gentlefolk.

312 The Nineteenth Century

' ' Whither are 3-011 travelling, friends ? ' ' asked I.

" To the capital of the Government, dear sir," answered
the old man in a sad voice.

" The grandparents are seeing this lad off, — they are his
grandparents, ' ' hastened to add the hostess, who was placing
a samovar on the table.

" The grandparents of this fellow ? " said I.

11 Yes, sir," answered the old man with a deep sigh, and
hung his grey head.

" What rank are you ? "

" Burghers, your honour."

"Burghers by birth?"

1 ' By no means, sir; we were formerly manorial servants."

" Not in this place ought a grandson of Yakov Ivanovich
be," interrupted the hostess: " I will say it in the presence
of this old man," she continued, " he was in his day a great
gentleman, and full of mettle. Whenever he stopped off
here, I had to bestir myself: it would not have done to offer
him stale food or a dirty samovar."

The old man smiled a bitter smile.

" We did not think, madam, that a child of our own could
ever act thus," said the old woman in her affected and some-
what lackadaisical voice.

" What 's to be done, mother? What 's to be done?"
replied the hostess, also in a whining voice.

** He was left after my daughter," proceeded the old
woman. "He was our precious diamond; we thought he
would be the consolation and joy in our loneliness and old
age. We had him educated like a child of gentlefolk: we
placed him in Moscow with what we thought to be nice
merchant people."

" What 's to be done, what 's to be done, mother! " again
fell in the hostess,

" Well, did he dissipate ? " asked I.

" God knows, sir, whether it was the merchant people did
not treat him right, or he did not watch himself," answered
the old woman.

The old man smiled bitterly and interrupted his wife:

Aleksyey Feofilaktovich Pisemski 313

' ' He had not taken care of himself since his childhood, for
he was born and brought up a spoilt child. Other clerks in
his business send money home while the}' are still boys, but
our lad kept on writing home for some : we sent him money,
until we were ruined. Meanwhile we heard that he was
getting into things that might bring him into jail. We
wrote him to come home, and he turned up only after two
years: he was barefoot and naked. We clothed him, hoping
that he would mend under our eyes, but, instead, he began
the very first week to take everything from the house to
the inn." With every new word there was heard more
severity in his voice, and tears stood in the eyes of the old
woman.

' ' Who were your masters ? " asked I, in order to interrupt
the conversation, which evidently gave them pain.

" Our mistress was Madam Court-intendant Pasmurov,"
reverently spoke the old man.

" Madam Court-intendant Pasmurov," repeated I, remem-
bering that my mother used to tell about a Madam Court-
intendant Pasmurov, as in her day a great lady.

" Your mistress was quite a prominent and well-known
woman in these parts ? " said I.

At this question the face of the old man became quite
serene.

" Our lady," he began, speaking slowly and with empha-
sis, * ' was probably the first person in Russia. She was a
woman by sex, but not one man could have stood out against
her. As she said, so it was done. She was a woman of im-
mense brains. ' '

14 They say she lived well, in a lordly manner," said I.

" Royally, or as would become the wife of a field-marshal.
She did not visit her fellow landed proprietors the year
round. There were forty rooms in the manor, and yet they
were crowded on holidays. They would come down like
the locusts with their nurses and their children, — everybody
was welcome," concluded the old man in a boastful tone.

I saw that I had before me one of those old servants of
former lords, who had grown up and become old, on the one

3H The Nineteenth Century

hand, in what was then regarded as modern fashions,' and
on the other, under the cane.

" You, no doubt, were a steward ? " asked I.

" I was, sir," answered he, compressing his eyes, as if to
collect his thoughts, ' ' I was, as we used to call it in those
days, chief servant of the manor: for one thing, I had some
twenty men and the musicians under my command, but
especially the serving at the table. Our lady of blessed
memory did not like things to be done half way : every day
there was to be a parade! Another thing: her eyesight was
weak, so I had to write letters at her dictation, and I had to
attend courts in her behalf; I was well instructed and, though
I did not know the law as I ought to, I knew how to get
along with the officials. Up to the fiftieth year of my life,
sir, I never wore anything but silk stockings and full dress
of fine English cloth. God grant her the kingdom of heaven,
— I enjoyed the favour of my lady."

" Nowadays there are no such masters," said I.

" By no means, sir, and there cannot be, — I have not the
honour of knowing who you may be, for, being blind, I can-
not see. There are no such masters now," answered the old
man, as if restraining himself from being open to me.

" I am a landed proprietor in this neighbourhood, and I
should like to ask you about those masters of olden times."

The old man sighed.

11 1 am seeing my ninety-seventh year in this world, sir,
and I see a great change in everything: those old masters,
I must say so, are in comparison with those of to-day like
eagles before sparrows, ' ' spoke he, significantly shaking his
head.

1 'How so?" asked I.

The old man moved his hands in thoughts.

" The first thing," he began, " they have somehow squan-
dered their properties, and they have not the same spirit.
Gentlemen nowadays behave differently, but then all was
simple; there was plenty of everything: grain, cattle, their
own winepress, — they prepared liqueurs by the barrel, and
such meads and sweet drinks ! They made merry and en-

Aleksyey Feofilaktovich Pisemski 315

joyed themselves; for example, they would bring together a
lot of male and female jesters on some holiday, and they
would urge them on against each other: and they fought
and amused the gentlefolk; but nowadays they keep little
company with each other, and find more pleasure in books. ' '

Here the old man stopped, but he soon began anew with
animation :

' ' There are not many gentlemen who now stay on their
estates, unless they be old or sick, but all serve in some ca-
pacity ; there are no longer great personages. Let us take,
for instance, our lady, the Court-intendant," he continued,
almost with emotion, " how she was honoured in the Govern-
ment ! A new lieutenant, or, as you call him now, a new
governor, is appointed: he is still in St. Petersburg, but she
is already writing to her friends, the ministers and senators,
that, inasmuch as a new governor is coming to us, * you tell
him to know me, and I will know him.' And the moment
she receives the news that he has arrived, she immediately
sends for me. I make my appearance, and bow. * Listen, '
says she, ' Yakov Ivanov ! ' — she always spoke a little through
her nose : ' Listen ! A new governor has arrived, so take
the best troyka,1 drive to Kostroma, go to such and such a
jeweller and purchase a silver basin; search out wherever
you please the very best of sterlets, or, still better, a live
sturgeon; go in my name to the governor, have yourself
announced, and say this and that about your mistress, the
Court-intendant, and that, on account of ill-health, she can-
not come herself, so she congratulates him by proxy upon
his arrival and, as a resident, sends him, as a greeting and
instead of the bread and salt, fish in the basin. He receives
it, I am given a fine treat, and he sends a letter to our
mistress.'*

* ' So the amity began, ' ' remarked I, in imitation of the old
man's voice.

"That's it, amity, your word is correct!" he fell in:
' ' because, when now his Excellency, the Chief of the Gov-
ernment, deigned to travel on inspections, he would visit us,
1 Three-horse carriage.

316 The Nineteenth Century

and those were magnificent assemblies. From what I have
seen and heard, governors nowadays travel with great pomp,
and demand great receptions and respect, and there is a great
fear, at least upon the small officials, but from what I know
of the past, the governors of to-day are nothing in compari-
son with them."

" How was it then ? " asked I.

" Formerly, sir, the governor travelled over the Govern-
ment like a king of the earth: what a lot of officials sur-
rounded his person, and what a lot of gentlefolk joined him
everywhere on his journey! There was one, — I dare not
mention his name, — who was in the habit of travelling over
the Government with his wife, and she, — pardon me for say-
ing so, — on account of her feminine weakness, had a great
love for dogs. There was a special carriage for these dogs;
and a special officer had charge of them. He by accident
lost one little dog; her Excellency the governor's wife, in
spite of her exalted position, boxed his ears in sight of all
people, and he was discharged, — that 's the kind of times
that were then!"

" Those were good, simple times," remarked I.

"It was simple, sir," concluded Yakov Ivanov; then,
having thought a moment, he continued: " It would hap-
pen, sir, that all that company stayed with us for three or
four days, or a whole week, and if the governor chanced to
praise some thing in our house, say a clock, a picture, a
silver platter, I had a standing order to take that thing in
the evening to his sleeping-room and to report that my lady
was very happy that such and such a thing had pleased him,
and that she begged him to accept it."

11 Did the old lady do it all from mere bravado ? " asked I.

"Bravado there was," answered Ydkov Ivanov. "Of
course, she had great vanity, but more than that, she drew
great advantages from it. For instance, an estate was for
sale by order of the chancery, — and my lady, relying on her
amicable relations to the chiefs of the Government, had only
to cast her eyes upon it, and it was ours. If I, the pleni-
potentiary of Mrs. Pasmurov, appeared at the sales in the

Aleksyey Feofilaktovich Pisemski 317

chancery, not a purchaser turned up: they knew full well
that the Chief of the Government did not desire it. I
thanked where thanks were needed, and in a befitting man-
ner, and it was all right whatever was paid for the estate.
The estate of Byelogrivy, sir, came in those days into our
hands for one hundred and twenty roubles, and when I went
down to take possession of it, I collected two hundred roubles
of delinquent dues from the peasants, so you may figure out
what the estate cost us. ' '

Saying this, the peasant evidently did not consider that
he had said too much, and when I cried out almost involun-
tarily:

"Old man! but that is a sin, that is stealing," he was
taken back, and answered in an humbled voice and with a
sigh:

" A sin, sir; in my wretchedness and blindness I see and
feel it all ; in the commandments of the Lord it is said : thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, nor his village, nor
his manservant, — but our old lady had a desire for it all,
though it must be said that all people are not without weak-
nesses." He strongly accentuated the last word.

' ' I should say, he and his mistress knew their advantage ! "
suddenly fell in Grdchikha, who was busy at the stove: " you
are telling of the estate, but you had better tell how you de-
livered a gentleman into the army as a recruit from your
estate," continued she, stepping out behind the partition
and standing near the ovenbed, while she leaned with one
arm on a beam and with the other against her fat side.

Ydkov Ivdnov frowned a little.

" How a gentleman ? " asked I.

' ' They did, ' ' answered Grachikha. ' ' Their mistress, the
General's wife, did not like to get her peasants under the red
hat, because she needed them all ; so there happened to turn
up a poor gentleman : he was not a nice fellow to behold ; he
must have been maimed when he was young, — his head was
so large and flat, and there was little sense in it, for he knew
neither count, nor days, nor anything else, and yet he knew
enough to live according to his estate. So these our falcons

3*8 The Nineteenth Century

came to him and began to persuade him: ' You/ they said,
' are a gentleman, and yet you live as a labourer among the
peasants. You had better serve in the army; but as you
know neither how to read, nor write, you will not be ranked
as a gentleman, so you had better serve first for our estate,
and later, when you will declare yourself a gentleman, you
will be properly advanced.' Having no kin with whom to
take counsel, he foolishly drank their wine and ate their
cates, and unthinkingly consented. The young gentleman
was brought to the recruiting office, and was declared a com-
mon peasant. They called out: ' Shave him! ' dressed him
in soldier's clothes, and ' March! ' with the rest of the re-
cruits. Three or four years later he announced to his su-
perior: ' I,' says he, ' am a gentleman! ' * What kind of a
gentleman are you? ' says he, and he chaffed him a little,
but he kept on repeating: ' I am a gentleman, that 's all,'
and he went to the higher authorities, and told them the
same. They looked into the documents, and saw that he
was a peasant, so they reported that way. So our gentleman
had to give it up, and he served thirty-five years for their
estate. They knew how to fix documents ! It may be that
for their trickery they are now paying with their own blood, ' '
said Grdchikha half-loud, pointing with her eyes to Ydkov
Ivanovich, who, in his turn, had listened to her recital with
bent head, and without saying a word.

I tried to change the subject, so I asked the old man:
1 ' In whose hands is the estate of your mistress now ? I
saw it: it is dilapidated and neglected, and the house is in
ruins.

" Our estate is now held in trust," answered he, evidently
satisfied with the change. " Well, the guardians are stran-
gers, and they either do not care to look after things, or they
steal into their own pockets. Not only do they neglect the
estate, but they do not keep the peasants in order. Drunk-
ards and wasters are living without fear, and those who are
better off now are frequently squeezed: ' We will put your
son,' they say, ' into the army, or we will take him to our
own estate.' "

Afanasi Afanasevich Shenshin 319

" And now, peasant, pay your ransom. In former days
you used to make a great deal of money," fell in Grachikha.

Yakov Ivanov paid no attention to her words, and con-
tinued:

"And then the estate has no protection against the officials.
In former days, when my mistress was alive, our manorial
servants were, to tell the truth, a riotous lot. Not a church
holiday passed without their riots, when they would smash
whole fairs, but the authorities, considering who they were
and to what lady they belonged, begged them with words to
stop; but nowadays, our rural captain of police, an insignifi-
cant man, commands and punishes in our villages, just out
of interest to that accursed one himself, in whose favour he
is so biassed that he regards that day lost in which he has
not had some advantage from his office. I once met him in
town, and says I to him : ' Why and for what cause do you,
sir, so abuse the estate of my mistress?' 'Ah,' says he,
worthy old man, where are we, the rural police, to have our
sway, if not in the estates that are in trust? These are
severe times, we are not permitted to take bribes, but what
we can pocket in any other way is all right ! ' and he laughed,
sir!"

Afanasi Afanasevich Shenshin (Fet). (1820-1892.)

Shenshin is one of the most melodious of the minor poets. He was
born in the Government of Ore"l, and received his early education at
home. Upon entering the Moscow University he was confronted
with certain difficulties which compelled him to assume the name of
Fet, after his mother by her first marriage, which he retained through
life as his nom de plume. He then served in the army up to 1856,
after which he retired to his Orel estate. He began writing in 1840,
and at first distinguished himself as a translator from Goethe and
Horace. His original poems, of which there is a large number, are
all short and tunable lyrical outbursts, with rarely a title to know
them by.

Two short poems, A Russian Scene and Tryst, are given in John
Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian, reprinted in the Library of the
World's Best Literature ; and the four nameless ones, given below,
by I. H. Harrison in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

320 The Nineteenth Century

When deeply musing in the silence of the night,

I see her, gentle Queen, above me shining clearly;
When all the constellations pour out their rays of light,

And Argo seems to dream, while twinkling, then I dearly
Long for the coming hour, when I again shall see

Thee near me, with a pain dull, dumb, and ever growing,
As, frightened by each sound, I trembling wait for thee.

Impatience gnaws my breast. Thou comest, slowly, show-
ing
By stealthy pace thy love, bashful, with timid glance

Around thee, and I rush to see those clear eyes tell
Their secret, and I read love's answer in their dance,

And hear thee softly whisper, smiling, " I love thee well! "
I strive in vain to utter the words which fill my heart;

All speech, by passion broken, ends but in sound unmean-
ing,
And as I panting kiss thy hair, and feel a part

Of thy breath mine becoming, I listen, o'er thee leaning,
For what thou 'It say, but no, I listen long in vain, —

Without a word thy kisses freely respond to mine —
O sweet one, may the happiness I feel be always thine,

And mine lie in sure hope that we two meet again !

Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and deeper,
Shapes that are born of our fears terrible grow in the dark —
Sounds I at once understand, e'en when o'er my book I sit

musing,

Motionless, lost in my thoughts, stung to the point of belief
In impossible things, while that which seems strangest seems

easy— -
In through the windows the moon shines, and the lamp burns

on

Dimly beside the couch, and far in the distance a tolling
Breaks through the silence at times, filling the room with its

swell ;

Gladly I yield to the charm which ever hath set my heart
beating,

Afanasi Afanasevich Shenshin 321

Moistening mine eyes with night's dew, tears of its infinite

joy-
Always I hear night's song, but often the melody changes:
Now 't is the clang of brass, then 't is of silver the ring.
Strange 't is that ears hear well when the mind is still work-
ing or vacant ;
Thought presses fast upon thought, — wave after wave in the

sea,—

Night with a mystical strength embraces, and into one fuses,
Feelings and objects around, all that we see, think, and hear;
Thus on the two-headed poppies midnight sheddeth its

moisture,
Giving them power of sleep— none can that mystery tell!

Stay here awhile, — 't is good! — Amid the shadows looming
Widely, with jagged edge, by moonlight from the pines —

Silence is over all ! The sounds on hilltops booming
Have here no leave to bring of heart's unrest the signs.

I will not go there where the stones, my faith deceiving,
Fall from beneath my heel, as the cliff's edge I tread,

Sheer to the beach below ; where the great waves are leaving,
And rushing on, the shore— the play of waters dread.

Thou, Silence, art alone before me, 'neath the quiet

Of the deep stars, thou empress of feeling and of thought —

But there the rough wave comes, and brings its splashing

riot —
I will not go there where all is with tumult fraught.

Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong,
Thou rousest idlest fancies in the mind!

All listen unto thee, and I cannot but long
To speak of what I in thy stillness find.

VOL. II.— 21.

322 The Nineteenth Century

Thine azure vault spreads wide before my wondering eyes,
And all thy golden lights are burning bright;

It is as if thy stars were one great sun that tries
To cast its rays upon my garden's site.

Even the moon, no longer swimming o'er tuft-crowned trees
With placid gaze, seems like thyself to burn,

Though all the while the brook glistens in plashing ease
Beneath the boughs which hide its every turn.

The feeblest noise resounds throughout thee like a blow;

Air whispers, like the strings of a guitar,
So tenderly to thee that all who hear him know

The call to love from lands both near and far.

All Nature seems aroused, in concert to cry out

In speech that will not let our fancies die;
We push the casement open to look on night without,
And trembling try to read the silvery sky.

— Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

TRYST

A whisper, a gentle sigh,

Trills of the nightingale;
The silver flash of the brook,

Asleep in the sleepy vale.
The shadows and shine of night —

Shadows in endless race ;
The sweet of a magical change

Over a sweet young face.
The blush of a rose in a mist,

An amber gleam on the lawn;
A rush of kisses and tears —

And oh, " the Dawn! the Dawn! "
— From John Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

F6dor Mikh£ylovich Dostoevski. (1821-1881.)

Dostoevski was the second of seven children of a poor army sur-
geon. He was brought up at home, which consisted of but two

Fedor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 323

living rooms, by his father. At thirteen years of age he was sent to
a boarding school, and later to the School of Engineering in St.
Petersburg from which he graduated in 1843. He received a good
appointment, but soon resigned from it in order to devote himself to
literature. His first novel, Poor People, appeared in 1846, and was
proclaimed as the work of a " new G6gol." In 1849 he was arrested
for a supposed participation in a conspiracy and was sentenced for
four years to Siberian prisons, after which he was to serve as a soldier
in a Siberian regiment. His nerves, which had never been strong,
were completely shattered in his imprisonment, and he at times had
fits of epilepsy. He was permitted to return to European Russia in
1859. Two years later he published with his brother a periodical,
The Time, in which appeared simultaneously two of his great novels,
The Humiliated and the Offended, and The Memoirs from the Dead
House. His best novel, Crime and Punishment, came out a few
years later. Only towards the end of his life did his works and his
literary labours furnish him with a competency. Dostoevski's writings
lack the artistic perfection of his great contemporaries, and almost
entirely neglect the description of Nature ; but they are unsurpassed
for the psychological analysis of human character, especially of the
diseased mind. It has been pointed out by a medical authority that
in his analysis of pathological cases he has anticipated later scientific
discoveries.

The following works have been translated into English : Buried
Alive; or, Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia, translated by
Marie von Philo, London and New York, 1881 ; Prison Life in
Siberia, translated by H. S. Edwards, London, 1887; Crime and
Punishment, London, 1885, New York, 1886 and 1889 (4th ed. Lon-
don, 1893) ; Injury and Insult, translated by F. Whishaw, London,
1886; Uncle's Dream, and The Permanent Husband, London, 1888-
9 ; Friend of the Family, and The Gambler, London, 1887-9 ; Poor
Folk (Franklin Square Library, No. 594), New York, 1887, translated
by L. Milman, Boston, and London, 1894 ; The Idiot, London, 1887-
8 ; extracts from Poor People, and Crime and Punishment, translated
by I. Hapgood, in the Library of the World's Best Literature.

FROM "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT''

RASKOLNIKOV'S CONFESSION ,

Raskolnikov again covered his face with his hands and
dropped his head. He suddenly grew pale, rose from his
chair, looked at S6nya, and, without uttering a word or being
conscious of the act, seated himself on her bed.

324 The Nineteenth Century

To his sensations, that moment bore a dreadful resem-
blance to the one when he was standing back of the old
woman and, having loosened the axe from the noose, was
'feeling that not another minute was to be lost.

" What is the matter with you ? " asked Sonya, terrified.

He could not speak a word. It was not at all that way
that he had intended to announce it to her, and he did not
himself understand what was going on within him. She
softly went up to him, sat down on the bed near him, and
waited, without taking her eyes away from him. Her heart
alternately beat strongly or stopped beating. It became un-
bearable. He turned his deathly pale face to her; his lips
twitched impotently in a vain effort to say something.
Terror passed through Sonya' s heart.

" What is the matter with you ? " she repeated, moving a
little away from him.

"Nothing, Sonya. Don't get frightened. Nonsense •'
Really, when you come to think of it, it is nonsense," he
muttered like a delirious person who is not conscious of him-
self. " But why have I chosen you of all persons to tor-
ment ? " he added suddenly, looking at her. " Really, why ?
I am continually asking myself this question, Sonya."

It may be he had asked himself that question fifteen
minutes before, but just then he had lost control of himself
and hardly knew what he was about, feeling only an un-
interrupted chill over his whole body.

" Oh, how you suffer! " she spoke with a painful expres-
sion, looking fixedly at him.

" It 's all bosh! Say, Sonya" (he, for some reason,

suddenly for a second or two smiled a pale and impotent
smile), " do you remember what I had intended to tell you
yesterday ? ' '

S6nya was waiting restlesly.

" I told you, as I left you, that it was probably the last
time I was bidding you good-bye, but that if I came back to-
day, I would tell you — who killed Lizaveta."

A tremor suddenly passed over her whole body.

" So, you see, I have come to tell you."

Fedor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 325

' ' So you really did yesterday ' ' she whimpered with

difficulty. " But how do you know?" she immediately
asked, as if coming to.

Sonya began to breathe with difficulty. Her face grew
paler and paler.

" I do know."

She remained silent for a minute.

* ' Did they find him ? ' ' she asked him timidly.

"No, they didn't."

"How, then, do you know about it?" she again asked
him barely audibly, after a minute's silence.

He turned around to her and fixed his gaze at her.
' * Guess ! " he muttered with the same convulsive and im-
potent smile as before.

Her whole body was shivering as if with cramps. ' * You
—why do you — do you frighten me ? ' ' she spoke and
smiled like a child.

"It must be, then, I am a great friend of his, since I
know," proceeded Raskolnikov, continuing uninterruptedly
to look at her face, as though it was beyond him to take his
eyes away from her. ' ' He did not mean to — kill — that
L,izaveta — He — killed her by accident — He wanted to
kill the old woman — when she was alone — and he came —
And then Lizav&a entered — He — then killed her too."

Another terrible minute passed. They looked at each
other.

"So you can't guess?" he suddenly asked her, with a
sensation as if he were falling down a belltower.

" N — no! " Sonya lisped almost inaudibly.

"Take a good look."

When he said that, the former, familiar sensation sud-
denly iced his soul. He glanced at her, and immediately it
appeared to him, he recognised lyizaveta in her face. He
vividly remembered the expression of Lizaveta's face as he
approached her with the axe and she kept receding to the
wall, with outstretched hand, and perfectly childish expres-
sion of fear in her face, precisely as little children do
who, when they suddenly become frightened at something,

326 The Nineteenth Century

immovably and restlessly look at the object of their fear, step
back and begin to cry, while stretching out their little hands.
Almost the same took place with S6nya. She looked at him
for a while, just as powerless, with just the same expression
of terror; then, suddenly, she stretched out her left hand,
barely touched his breast with her fingers, and began to rise
slowly from the bed, all the time removing farther away
from him and ever more immovably fixing her eyes upon
him.

Her terror was soon communicated to him, and he began
to look at her, almost with the same childish smile.

" Have you guessed ? " he whispered at last.

' ' Lord ! ' * A terrible moan issued from her breast. She fell
powerless on the bed, with her face on the pillows. But in
a moment she was again on her feet, rapidly walked up to
him, seized his two hands, and, pressing them hard with her
thin fingers, as in a vise, again became motionless as if glued
to the place, and stared at him. With this last, despairing
glance she wanted to read some last hope in his face. But
there was no hope; there was no suspicion left; it was all
so ! Even later, when she recalled that moment, she felt in-
expressibly strange: how was it that she then saw at once
that there was no doubt whatsoever left ? For certainly she
could not say that she had had a presentiment of that kind.
But just then, when he had barely told her about it, it sud-
denly flashed upon her that she really had had some such
presentiment.

1 ' Stop, Sonya, stop ! Do not torment me ! " he begged
her pitifully. He had had the intention of telling her about
it in an entirely different manner, but it had turned out just
that way.

She jumped up, as if beside herself, and, wringing her
hands, stepped to the centre of the room; but she imme-
diately returned and seated herself by his side, touching his
shoulder with her own. Then she suddenly quivered, as if
pierced by an arrow, cried out aloud, and, without knowing
herself why, kneeled down before him.

"Oh, what have you done with yourself?" she' cried in

Fedor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 327

despair and, rising to her feet, embraced his neck and
pressed it with all her might.

Raskolnikov reeled back and looked at her with a sad
smile.

" You are a strange girl, Sonya! You embrace and kiss
me, though I told you all about it. You are beside your-
self."

' * No, there is not a more unfortunate man in the whole
world than you are ! ' ' she called out, as if in a stupor, with-
out hearing his remark, and suddenly bursting into tears,
as if in hysterics.

A long unfamiliar feeling flooded his soul and at once
softened it. He did not struggle against it: two tears
rolled out of his eyes and hung upon his lashes.

" So you will not leave me, Sonya?" he spoke, looking
almost hopefully at her.

" No, no! Never and nowhere! " Sonya cried out. " I
will go with you, anywhere you want me to ! O I,ord ! O
miserable girl that I am. Oh, why, why did I not know
you before ? Why did you not come to see me before ? O
Lord!"

" You see, I have come now! "

" Now! Oh, what can now be done? Both of us, both
of us ! ' ' she cried out as if oblivious and again embraced him.
" I '11 go to Siberia with you! "

Something touched him to the quick, and his former hate-
ful and almost supercilious smile stood upon his lips.

" S6nya, as far as that is concerned, I may not yet be
ready to go to Siberia," he said.

Sonya cast a swift glance at him.

After her first impassioned and vexatious sympathy with
the unfortunate man, the terrible idea of the murder struck
her again forcibly. She heard the murderer in his changed
tone of voice. She looked in wonderment at him. She
knew nothing as yet, neither why, nor how, nor for what
purpose. Now all these questions burst at once upon her
consciousness. And again she could not believe : ' l He, he
a murderer ! But is that possible ? ' '

328 The Nineteenth Century

"But what is that? Where am I?" she exclaimed in
great perplexity as if still in a trance. " But how could
you, you, take that step ? How was it possible ? "

"Why, to rob. Stop, Sonya!" he answered, as if ex-
hausted and even as if annoyed.

Sonya stood for a moment, as if struck dumb, then she
suddenly cried out :

' ' You had been hungry ! You — to help your mother ?
Yes?"

/-> " No, S6nya, no," he muttered and turned away his
/ drooping head, " I was not so hungry, I really wanted to
I help my mother, but — that is not quite correct either — do
\not torment me, S6nya ! ' '

S6nya wrung her hands.

" But can all this be really true ? Lord, is it true ? Who

would believe it ? How can it be, you give away your

last, and then you kill, in order to rob ! Ah ! ' ' she suddenly
cried out. ' ' The money, the money that you had given
Katerina Ivanovna — that money — Lord, can it be that
money, too ? ' '

"No, Sonya," he speedily interrupted her, "not that
money, calm yourself! That money mother sent me by a
merchant, and I received it when I was sick, and that very
day I gave it away. No, that was my money, my own
money."

S6nya listened to him perplexed and was invoking all her
reasoning power in order to form a concept.

"That money— I really do not even know whether
there was any money there," he added softly and as if lost
in meditation. ' ' I did take off a purse, a full chamois purse,
from her neck, but I did not open it to look into it; I sup-
pose I did not have the time for it There were some

other things, studs, chains, and I know not what, — I
buried all that and the purse next morning under a rock

in somebody's yard, in the V. Prospect It 's all there

yet "

Sonya was straining herself to hear.

" Then why did you do it ? You said yourself, you did

F£dor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 329

it to rob, and then you did not take anything ? ' ' she quickly
asked him, trying to catch at a straw. ~

' ' I do not know — I have not yet made up my mind \
whether to take that money, or not, ' ' he spoke, as if again \
lost in meditation, but suddenly regaining consciousness, his
face was lit up by a swift, soft smile. " Oh, what a lot of /
bosh I have been just saying, eh ? "

A thought flashed through S6nya's mind: " Maybe he is
insane ! ' ' but she immediately arrested her thought : ' ' No,
there is something else there." She did not understand a
thing, not a thing !

" Do you know, Sonya," he suddenly said with a kind of
inspiration, ' ' do you know what I will tell you ? If I had
murdered them because I was hungry," he continued, ac-
centuating every word, and enigmatically, though sincerely, / /
looking at her, ' ' I would now be happy ! You had better * /
know that ! What do you care, what do you care, ' ' he cried
out after a moment in a voice akin to despair, ' ' what do
you care for my confession, if I were to make it, that I have
done wrong? What good could such a foolish victory of
yours over me do you ? O Sonya, did I now come to you
for that?"

Sonya again wanted to say something, but she kept silent.

" That 's why I wanted you last night to be with me, be-
cause you are the only one left to me. ' '

" Where did you want me to go to ?" Sonya asked timidly.

" Not to steal, nor murder, don't worry— not for that," he
smiled sarcastically. "I only now begin to understand
what I called you for last night! Yesterday, I did not
understand what I called you for. I called you for the same
purpose for which I have come to see you now : not to leave
me. You will not leave me, S6nya ? ' '

She pressed his hand.

" Now, why did I tell her, why did I confess to her," he
cried out a minute later in despair, looking in endless tor-
ment at her. * ' You are waiting for an explanation from
me, Sonya; you are sitting there and waiting, I see it; but
what am I to tell you ? You won't understand a word of it;

33° The Nineteenth Century

you will only suffer torment— for me ! There, there you are
weeping and again embracing me. Why are you embracing
me ? Is it because I did not bear it all myself, but came to
put it on other shoulders, that by your suffering I may feel
relieved ? And you can love such a villain ? ' '

"Are n't you suffering yourself ? " Sonya exclaimed.

The same feeling again flooded his soul, and again for a
moment softened it.

* ' Sonya, my heart is bad. Take a note of that, for you
will be able to explain much by it. I came because I am
bad. There are some who would not have come. But I am
a coward, a villain! Well, let it be! But that is not it!

1 ought to talk now, and I do not know how to be-

gin "

He stopped and fell to musing.

" Bah, we don't belong together!" he again exclaimed.
" We are not a match for each other. Why, why did I
come ? I shall never forgive myself ! ' '

' * No, no ! It is good that you have come ! ' ' exclaimed
Sonya, " it is better that I should know, much better! "

He looked in pain at her.

"After all, why not?" he said, as if pondering over it.
* ' It certainly happened that way ! Listen : I wanted to be a
Napoleon, that 's why I murdered Well, do you under-
stand now ? ' '

" N — no! " Sonya muttered naively and timidly, " but just
go on ! I '11 understand you, I '11 make it out ! " she begged
him.

"You will understand? Very well, we shall see!"

He grew silent and pondered for a long while.

"It is like this: I once asked myself what would have
happened if Napoleon had been in my place, and had had
nothing with which to begin his career, neither Toulon,
nor Egypt, nor crossing Mont-Blanc; if instead of all these
beautiful and monumental things there would be nothing
but a funny old woman, a registrar's widow, whom, in
addition, it would be necessary to kill in order to get the
money out of her trunk (for the sake of a career, you under-

Fedor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 331

stand!), — well, would he have made up his mind to do so, if
there had been no other way ? Would he have had scruples
because it is far from being monumental, and — and because
it is sinful ? Well, I tell you, this * question ' tormented me
for a dreadfully long time, so that I felt very much ashamed
when at last I guessed (it came all of a sudden to me), that
he not only would not have had any scruples, but that it
would not even have occurred to him that it was not monu-
mental— and that he would have been at a loss to see what
he was to have any scruples about ? And if no other road
had been open to him, he would have choked her to death,
without giving her a chance to cry out, and he would not
even have brooded over it. Well, I — stopped brooding!
over it — killed her — following the example of my author-

ity It was precisely that way! You think it

funny ? Yes, S6nya, the funniest thing about all this is that
it really happened that way "

S6nya did not think it at all funny.

" You had better tell me straight, without examples," she
begged him more timidly and in a hardly audible voice.

He turned towards her, sadly looked at her, and took her
hands.

' ' You are again right, Sonya. That is indeed nonsense,
nothing but empty prattle! You see: you know that my
mother hardly has a thing. My sister has somehow man-
aged to get an education, and she is destined to wear her life
away as a governess. All their hopes were centred in me.
I studied, but was unable to support myself in the university,
and was compelled to leave it for a time. Even as it was, I
still might have hoped, if circumstances became favourable,
in ten or twelve years to be a teacher or official, with a thou-
sand roubles yearly salary." He spoke as if he had learned
it by heart. " In the meanwhile my mother would dry up
from cares and grief, and I should not after all succeed in
making her lot easier, while my sister — well, something

worse could happen to her! What pleasure is there

in passing all your life by things and avoiding them, in for-
getting your mother, or, say, respectfully bearing the insult

C

332 The Nineteenth Century

offered to your sister ? What for ? To bury them, to get a
family of your own, wife and children, and then to leave
these too without a penny ? Well — well, so I decided to get
hold of the old woman's money, to use it for the first few
years, by providing for myself in the university, without
putting my mother to any trouble, and to use it also for the
first steps after my university career. I had decided to do it
all in a broad, radical manner, so as to provide abundantly
for my new career, and to start on a new and independent

road Of course, it is wrong for me to have killed that

old woman — well, enough of it ! "

He dragged out the story in complete exhaustion, and his
head fell down on his breast.

"Oh, it is not that, not that," Sonya exclaimed dejectedly,
' ' how could one — no, not that way, not that way ! ' '

' ' You see yourself that it is not so ! Still I have told you
the whole truth!"

' ' What truth is that ! O Lord ! ' '

' ' I have only killed a louse, Sonya, a useless, nasty, harm-
ful louse."

' ' You call a person a louse ! ' '

£ " I know myself that she is not a louse," he answered,
looking at her in a strange manner. ' ' However, S6nya, I am

lying, — I have been lying for a long time No, it is not

that; you are right. No, there are altogether different

reasons! I have not talked to anybody for a long time,

Sonya My head hurts me dreadfully."

His eyes burnt with a feverish fire. He was almost grow-
ing delirious ; a restless smile hovered on his lips. A terrible
impotence could be seen through the excited condition of his
soul. S6nya understood how he was suffering. Her own
head began to whirl. And he spoke so strangely, and yet
as if one might understand, but— " How is it possible?
How is it possible, O Lord? " and she wrung her hands in
despair.

" No, S6nya, it is not that! " he began again, raising his
head, as if a sudden new turn in his thoughts had struck
him and roused him. ' ' It is not that ! But rather, suppose

F£dor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 333

(yes, that is better!), suppose that I am selfish, envious, ma-
licious, villainous, revengeful, well — if you wish it, inclined
to insanity. (I*et us grant all, while we are about it ! We
spoke before of insanity, it seems !) I told you long ago that
I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know,
I may have been able to after all ! Mother would have sent
the amount for the fees, and very likely I could have earned
enough for shoes, clothes, and bread ! There was some tutor-
ing to do, and they offered fifty kopeks an hour. Take
Razumikhin, he is working ! But I j ust got mad, and did n' t
want to. That 's it, mad, — that is a good word! I then
kept to my corner like a spider. You have been in my den,
you have seen it - Do you know, Sonya, low ceilings and
small rooms oppress soul and mind! Oh, how I did hate
that den ! And yet, I did not wish to leave it ! I did not
leave it for days at a time, and I did not want to work, or
even eat, but lay there all the time. If Nastasya brought
me anything, I would eat it; if not, — a day might pass with-
out eating. I was so mad, I did not ask on purpose. During
the evenings I had no candles, but lay in darkness. I did
not try to earn enough for candles. I ought to have studied,
but I had sold my books; on my notes and copybooks that
are lying on the table there is even now an inch of dust. I
preferred to lie and think. And I did nothing but think -
I had such strange visions, such peculiar dreams, just horri-
ble! It was then that I began to imagine that — no, that
is n' t correct ! I am again telling wrong ! You see, I kept
on asking myself: why am I so stupid and do not try to be
wiser, when others are stupid and I am positive that they are
stupid ? Then I discovered, Sonya, that it would take a long
time to wait for others to get wiser - Then I found out
that it would never happen, that people would not change,
that nobody could change them, and that it was not worth
the while anyway! Yes, that 's the way! That 's their
law, their law, Sonya ! That's so! - !_ know even
J36nya, that he who is

is their master! JHe who_dares is right in their eyes. He
who looIEs with contempt at most things is their lawgiver,

334 The Nineteenth Century

and he who dares most of all is most right ! So it has always
been, and so it will always be ! Only a blind man will re-
fuse to see that !"

Saying this, Rask61nikov looked at S6nya, but he
was no longer concerned about her understanding him.
He was in a kind of sombre rapture. He had really not
exchanged any words with anyone for a long time. S6nya
understood that that gloomy catechism was his faith and
law.

" I then came to the conclusion, S6nya," he proceeded in
an ecstatic mood, ''that power is given only to him who
/ dares to bend in order to take it up. That is the only thing,
\ — one must dare! Then I worked out a thought, for the
first time in my life, which no one had ever worked out be-
fore! Nobody! It all of a sudden became clear to me as
the sun that it was very strange that, passing by all that
nonsense, no one had ever dared or would dare to take the
whole business by the tail and send it flying to the devil ! I
k — I wanted to dare, and I killed — I only wanted to dare.
S6nya, there is the whole reason! "

' ' Oh, hush, hush ! ' ' cried S6nya, and wrung her hands.
' ' You have departed from God, and God has struck you
down, and has given you over to the devil! "

" By the way, S6nya, when I was lying in the dark and
all kinds of thoughts came to me, was it the devil that was
tempting me, eh ? "

" Hush! Don't laugh, blasphemer! You do not under-
stand anything, not a thing ! O Lord ! He will not under-
stand anything! "

" Hush, Sonya, I am not at all laughing, I know myself
that the devil was dragging me all the time. Hush, Sonya,
hush ! " he repeated gloomily and with emphasis. " I know
all. I thought it all over and whispered it to myself as I
was lying there in the dark — I have discussed it all with
myself, down to the finest point, and I know all, I know all !
And I got then so tired of all that prattle ! I wanted to for-
get and begin anew, Sonya, and stop all that nonsense ! Do
you really think I went headlong, like a fool ? I went like

F£dor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 335

a shrewd fellow, and it is this that has been my undoing !
Or do^ you really think that I_did_not mknqw^Jfox..e^ampie^_
that the very fact that IRpt on asking myself and discussing
with myself whether I had a right to have power, w_as_in
itselfja proof that^had^osuch right ? OrTthaFwhen I put
tEeTquestion to myself : * Is man a louse ? ' man is no longer
a louse, as far as I am concerned, but that he is only a louse
for him who has no doubts about it, and proceeds without
any questions ? The very fact that I was vexed for several
days by the question, whether Napoleon would have gone

or not, showed that I clearly felt that I was no Napoleon

I suffered all the torment of that nonsense, Sonya, and I
wanted to get rid of it. . I_ wanted to kill without casuistry,
S6nya, to killforjnyown sake, only for me ! I did not want
To lie in tnis matter^'not even to myself ! I did not kill in
order to help mother, — that 's bosh! I did not kill in order
to get the means and the power with which to do good to
humankind. Bosh! I simply killed, killed for my own
sake, only for me. No doubt, it was all the same to me at
that moment whether I was ever to become anybody's bene-
factor, or whether I was going, like a spider, to catch them

all in my cobweb in order to suck their vital sap ! Nor

was money the main thing that I wanted when I killed her,

Sonya; not so much the money as something else Now

I know it all Understand me : if I were to go on that

road again, I should never repeat that murder. I had to find
out something else, — something else drew me on. What I
had to find out then, — and find out at once, — was whether
I was a louse or a man ! Whether I should be able to trans-
gress or not ! Whether I should be able to bend and take
up or not ! Whether I am a trembling creature, or whether j
I have the right "

" To kill ? Whether you have the right to kill ? " S6nya
wrung her hands.

"Ah, S6nya! he exclaimed excitedly; he wanted to retort
something, but contemptuously kept silent. ' * Do not inter-
rupt me, Sonya! I wanted to prove but one thing to you:
that the devil was then drawing me on, and that only later

336 The Nineteenth Century

he explained to me that J ViaH r^Q_right to go thej-g, because
I am just the samejind of a louse as anybody else. He has
Had his laughat me, and so I have~come to you now ! Here
is a guest for you ! If I were not a louse, would I have come
to you ? listen ! When I was then going to the old woman,
I only went to try — I am telling you ! "

1 ' And you killed her ! You killed her ! "

" How killed her ? Is that the way to kill ? Do people
go to kill the way I went? I '11 tell you sometime how I
went then ! - J3id.l killlhejjld woman ? I killed myself,
and not the old woman ! I then crushed myself for eternity !
^^ 'The devil killed the old woman, and not I —
Enough, S6nya, enough! Leave me alone," he suddenly
cried out in convulsive despair, * ' leave me alone ! ' '

He bent over his knees and pressed his head with his
hands, as if in a vise.

" Oh, what torment! " Sonya moaned pitifully.

' * Well, what is to be done now, speak ! ' ' he asked, sud-
denly raising his head and looking at her with a face that
was horribly distorted by despair.

" What is to be done! " she exclaimed, jumping up from
her seat, and her eyes that had been full of tears suddenly
began to sparkle.

"Rise!" She grabbed him by his shoulder; he raised
himself and looked almost perplexed at her. f ' Go at once,
this very minute, stand at the cross-road, make your
obeisance, first kiss the earth that you have polluted, then
bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and cry out aloud
to all, so that all may hear it: ' I have murdered! ' The
God will send you life again. Will you go ? Will you ? ' '
she asked him, trembling as if in a fit. She seized both his
hands, pressed them tightly with her own, and looked at
him with a fiery glance.

He was perplexed and was even surprised at her sudden
ecstasy.

" You are talking about Siberia, Sonya, are n't you? If
I understand you right, I am to accuse myself," he said
gloomily.

Fedor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski 337

" What is necessary is to accept the suffering and redeem
yourself through suffering. ' '

" No, Sonya, I won't go to them."

' ' But how are you going to live ? — how are you ? What are
you going to live by ? " Sonya exclaimed. " Will that be
possible now ? How are you going to talk to your mother ?
Oh, what will become of them, what will become of them
now? But what am I saying? You have already aban-
doned mother and sister. You have abandoned them, you
have. O L,ord! " she exclaimed, " he knows all that him-
self! How, pray, how can one live without people ? What
will become of you ? ' '

"Be no child, S6nya," he softly said. "What am I
guilty of in their presence ? Why should I go ? What shall

I tell them? That is all visionary They themselves

get away with people by the million, and regard it a virtue.

They are rascals and villains, Sonya! I won't go.

What should I tell them? — that I have killed somebody,
and that I did not dare take the money, but hid it under a
rock ? " he added with a sarcastic smile. ' ' Why^ihejL-will
themselves laugh at me, and will say : * He was a fool not to
take the money! A" coward and a fool ! ' They will under-
stand nothing, absolutely nothing, Sonya, and they do not de-
serve to understand. Why should I go? Be no child, Sonya. ' '

' ' You will worry your life away, you will worry your life \
away," she repeated, stretching out her hands to him, and /
imploring him with a despairing look.

" Maybe I have incriminated myself beyond necessity,"
he remarked gloomily, as if lost in meditation, "maybe I am
still a man, and not a louse, and have been too hasty in ac-
cusing myself I will struggle on for a while."

A haughty smile lay on his closed lips.

" To bear such a torment! And it is for a lifetime, for a
lifetime!"

"I '11 get used to it," he said morosely and pensively.
" listen," he began a minute later, " it 's time to stop weep-
ing, and think of business. I came to tell you that they are
looking for me now, and trying to catch me ' '

VOL. II. — 22.

338 The Nineteenth Century

' ' Ah ! ' ' exclaimed Sonya in fright.

* ' Why have you cried out ! You yourself wanted me to
be sent to the mines, and now you are frightened. But let
me tell you: I am not going to give myself up to them. I
will struggle on, and they will do nothing. They have no
real clue. Yesterday I was in great danger, and I thought
that I was undone; but to-day things have improved. All
their proofs have two ends to them, that is, I can turn their
accusations to my advantage, do you understand ? And I
will do so, for I have learned a thing or two. But they will
certainly put me in jail. If it had not been for just one in-
cident, they would have put me in jail to-day, and maybe

they still will But that is nothing, Sonya. I shall stay

there a while, and then they will let me out, for they have
not a single proper proof, and there will be none, — I give
you my word for it. With what they know, they cannot

hold a man. Well, that 's enough I just wanted you

to know I shall try to fix matters with my mother and

sister, so as to allay their suspicions and fears. Besides, my
sister seems to be provided for at present, consequently
mother too. Well, that 's all. However, you want to be
cautious. Will you come to see me in jail, when I am taken
there?'*

"Oyes, I will, I will!''

They were sitting side by side, sorrowful and crushed, as
if cast by a storm on a desolate shore. He looked at Sonya
and he felt how much her love was upon him, and, strange
to say, he suddenly had a heavy and painful feeling because
he was loved. Yes, that was a strange and terrible sensa-
tion ! As he was on his way to S6nya, he felt that all his
hope was in her. He had hoped to put away part of his
sufferings, and now that all her heart had turned to him, he
suddenly felt and knew that he was infinitely more unhappy
than he had been before.

1 ' S6nya," he said, " you had better not come to see me in
jail."

S6nya did not answer, she was weeping.

"You won't, will you?"

Apoll6n Nikolaevich Maykov 339

* ' Here, take this cypress cross. I have another, of copper,
that used to belong to Lizaveta. Lizaveta and I have ex-
changed crosses: she gave me her cross, and I gave her my
image. I shall now wear Lizaveta' s, and you keep this one.
Take it — it is mine ! It is mine ! ' ' she begged him. * ' We
will suffer together, let us together bear the cross ! ' '

* ' Give it to me ! " said Raskolnikov. He did not wish to
offend her. But he immediately drew back the hand that
he had stretched out to receive the cross.

11 Not now, S6nya. Better some other time," he added,
in order to calm her.

" Yes, yes, better later," she said in rapture, " when you
begin }'our punishment, then you will put it on. You will
come to me, and I shall put it on you; then we will pray
and we shall start."

Apoll6n Nikolaevich Maykov. (1821-1898.)

A. N. Maykov was the grandson of V. I. Maykov, the author of the
Elisey (see vol. i., p. 263), and the son of a well-known artist. He
passed his early childhood in the country, near Moscow, until his
family, in 1834, emigrated to St. Petersburg. Here he early came in
contact with the literary circles, and was prepared for the university
by Gonchar6v (see p. 259), who was his tutor in Russian literature.
At first he devoted himself entirely to painting, and attached little
importance to his poetical talents ; but his growing nearsightedness
interfered with his artistic activity, and the flattering reception of his
verses by Byelinski led him to turn his attention to poetry. In 1842
he went abroad, staying more than a year in Italy, attending the
College de France and the Sorbonne, and plunging into the Pan-
slavic propaganda at Prague. Upon his return he wrote a large num-
ber of poems, dealing with his European impressions, and also some
from Russian history. He excelled in the description of classic an-
tiquity, which culminated in his great work, The Two Worlds, with
Three Deaths as a kind of prologue to it ; his classic knowledge ap-
pears to great advantage in his Anthological Poems. Of his medieval
poems may be mentioned Savonarola and The Council of Clermont.
He kept entirely aloof from the questions of the day, and Russian
contemporary history and life occupied but a small space in his pro-
ductions : he either betook himself to depicting scenery, as in The
Catching of the Fish, or to the idealisation of the past. Of his many
translations, mainly from the Slavic languages, must be especially

340 The Nineteenth Century

mentioned his admirable modernisation of The Word of Igor's
Armament.

In Macmillan's Magazine, vol. xxxiii. (1877), is given To the Em-
press of India ; in C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, London, 1887, are
given : The Cornfields, Hay-making, 7*he Mountain Spring, The
Idiot Girl, A Picture; in John Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian,
London, 1891 : A Midsummer Night's Dream, Who Was He ?, The
Easter Kiss, On Lomondsov, Propriety, The Singer, A Little Picture,
The Alpine Glacier, The Mother, The Kiss Refused, The Snowdrop,
A Smile and a Tear. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society : by F.
P. Marchant, The Marble Faun, in No. 19, On Re-reading Pushkin,
in No. 32, The Thought, Hesiod, The Muse, The Peris, The Hermit,
Happy realm of youth eternal, When overwhelmed by grief, From the
Gnostics, in No. 33 ; by J. Pollen, reprint of his A Little Picture, in
No. 33. In Free Russia are given : by Elizabeth Gibson, The Coun-
cil of Constance, in vol. xi., Nos. 8-10, and parts of the Three Deaths,
in vol. xii., No. 4. In the Library of the World's Best Literature are
reprinted J. Pollen's The Easter Kiss, The Alpine Glacier, The Kiss
Refused.

THE PERIS

Her sins atoned by tears of sorrow,

Those penitential tears scarce dry,
The soul, by her Creator pardoned,

Flies on swift wings to realms on high.

•

Through starry space, the soul embracing,
White peris take their flight along,

While choirs of infant cherubs thronging
Greet her with bursts of joyous song.

Oh, with ecstatic cries of rapture
She would fill all the heavenly plains,

Would render thanks, and in rejoicing
Forget all former earthly pains!

But, circling round with curious glances

And coaxing wiles, the peris all
Entreat her, with most tender pleading,

To tell the story of her fall.

Apoll6n Nikolaevich Maykov 341

Is it their joy a soul to comfort,

From earthly trials gone up on high ?
Or do they know by strange traditions
This world of sin beyond the sky ?

— Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 33.

WHO WAS HE?
A STORY OF PETER THE GREAT

Upon the mighty Neva's bank,

Along the winding woodland way,
A Horseman rode, in forest wilds

Of elms, of pine, of mosses grey.

Before him rose a Fisher's hut;

Beneath a pine, by the blue stream,
An aged, bearded Fisherman

Was mending his boat's broken beam.

The Horseman said, " Grandsire! Good-day!

God help thee, friend ! how livest thou ?
Dost thou catch much ? and tell me, pray,

Where dost thou sell thy takings now ? "

The old man answered sullenly,

' ' Are fishes in the river few ?
And other market have I none

Except the town, there, close to you.

' ' And how am I to fish to-day ?

What kind of turmoil 's here, you see!
You fight; and, in the fight, a shell

Has smashed my fishing-boat for me ! ' '

The Horseman bounded from his horse,
Without a word the tools he grasped ;

342 The Nineteenth Century

And in a twinkling planked the boat,
The rudder in the stern set fast.

" See, now, old friend, thy boat 's all right!

Out on the water boldly set;
And, in the name of Peter's luck,

Cast forth into the deep thy net/'

He vanished. Mused the stern old man :

" I wonder who the de'il was he!
In every inch he looked a king,

But plied the hatchet splendidly."
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

THE MARBLE FAUN

Through a deserted garden- walk I wandered in the shade,
The rosy twilight faded, and of leaves the trees all bare
In dark clusters stood around me, while the autumn evening

made
The atmosphere quite chilly. Then among the thickets

there

I chanced to find a statue of a faun once white and clean,
With rubbish, dust, and moss encrusted, dingy, mildewed,

green.
He glanced from out the branches with a pleasant smile, and

these

Set in motion gently by the wind, his strong visage swept,
While hidden from my downward glance the marble form

they kept.

I saw the aged lindens shake, and lo, among the trees
Were other forms of marble that within their foliage slept.
But what of all most struck my view wrapped in the shrubs'

embrace

Was that one marble image -head and mocking, smiling face.
I admired the ancient idol, long neglected, for a while,
And the face amid the thicket threw at me a cunning smile.
I felt a kind of pity. " Thou wert held of old divine,

Apollon Nikolaevich Maykov 343

Image cynical and smiling! To the flute's melodious sound
Men prepared to thee the sacrifice, for thee the flames did

shine,
They uttered prayers, the lamb expired, and thou wert

sprinkled round
With the fresh blood of the victim. Now, I pray thee, let

me know,
Art thou sighing for the days gone by, — thy vanished power

and crown ?

Then upon those youthful races did a happier lot pour down ?
Or have sages merely fabled of the days of long ago ?
Was that tale a vain invention, of their lives of peace and joy,
Or did ceaseless labour in the field their energies employ ?
Thou dost smile upon me, dost thou ? — Then when dawned

a later date
Thou didst gaze, a mute spectator, on a splendid court and

state;
Thou wert looked on as a marvel when among the ruins

found,

Then the garden was laid out for thee, and thou wert com-
passed round
With the tritons and the naiads, with Athenians old and

wise,
And with Rome's Imperial Caesars and Greek Sovereigns of

the skies;
Thou didst look on it with laughter, and thy pleasant visage

glowed

On the ball-scene's glitter gazing. Then the garden over-
flowed"
With the ringing strains of music. In that alley's gloomy

shade

A pair of youthful lovers from the guests their shelter made.
Thou didst note their stolen interviews among the bushes

dark,
Thou didst hear the kiss resounding, and their fond caresses

mark.
Tell me further : were those lovers' ardent pledges kept for

long

344 The Nineteenth Century

Unrepentant and unbroken ? Was their hearts' love always

strong,

Shining brightly, burning ever, not expiring like a spark ?
Were their names and plighted promise, — on thy pedestal

here traced
By precise and earnest fingers, —by the raindrops soon

effaced ?
Or, maybe, they wandered here again, beneath thy lindens'

shade,

Where to meet with other paramours they new appoint-
ments made ?
Through the thick boughs overhanging did thy sly and

sneering smile
From their amorous professions tear the treacherous mask

away?
Did their faces, flushed with crimson, their deceitful hearts

betray?"

Thus I gazed in mute inquiry on the statue for a while,
And the marble cynic answered with his calm, sarcastic smile.
— Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

FROM THE LYRIC DRAMA " THREE DEATHS"

THE DEATH OF SENECA AND OF LUCIUS

(Having embraced Seneca and Lucius, Lucan exit, in company
of the lictors.)

Seneca (wants to follow him, but stops as his disciples rush
up to him ; stroking his brow, he speaks softly and solemnly).
I had but one aim in life, and I have walked to it over a
rugged path. My life has ever been a moral school: and
death is but a new lesson, a new letter, amidst the eternal
and wondrous alphabet, a pledge of a higher, endless science!
The Creator has given me a stern mind with which to scan

Apollon Nikolaevich Maykov 345

the universe, that what I have learned in me and it I may
transmit to future generations. He sent against me malice,
monstrous and vile debauch, that, like an oak upon the
height midst storms, I might grow strong through artful
battling, that among a mass of deeds and acts I might im-
press my image I have accomplished all. My form is

cast. Yet one more chisel's sweep, — and proudly shall it
stand through ages. The chisel shall not quiver. Terror
shall not bind my hands. My journey is finished here, — but
my spirit, made in this terrestrial life more perfect and more
wise, will enter eternity. Open is the door before me, and I
see the dawn of another life

(The philosopher's friends, sobbing, embrace his knees.
Looking at them, he proceeds .•)

Life is good when in the world we are a necessary link,
and one with all the living; when at the banquet I am not
superfluous ; when going with the people to the fane, I wor-
ship the same gods with them. But when the crowd, apart
from you, has raised up a divinity and with cruel malice
watches the movements of your heart; when, seeing you
afar, they point their fingers (oh, believe me, friends, it is
not easy to live an outcast wanderer !) at the remnants of
better generations, with their ancient virtue in their breast : —
we pass like corpses, like shadows, like jesters in the forum !
And unobserved a mighty wind will drown us midst the
rippling waves, like worthless chips of once victorious
ships

Our age is past. Our time is up, O brothers! Others
have now come into the world; other feelings and concep-
tions they have brought with them Perchance, believ-
ing stubbornly in the traditions of our youth, we, like an
ominous blast, congeal the renovated lives of men. Per-
haps the truth is not with us ! Our mind no longer

grasps it, and looks up with weakened eyes, yet not ahead,
nor sees the light of truth, and wails: " No, there is no
salvation!" And, perchance, another man will come, and
he will say: "Here is the light!" No! Our time is
up ! Cut open now my arteries ! O greatest of all gifts,

346 The Nineteenth Century

O death, you are now in my hands ! O Socrates ! O teacher !
Dearest friend ! To you I go !

(Exit) accompanied by his disciples.}

Lucius. Well finished, Seneca ! Thou borest it gloriously !

And now, one hero less! Looking at the man, I feel

aggrieved ! What matters it that thou art dead ? That to
the end thy courage did not flag? For gossips and for
calumny thou hast for two days given food to Rome! In
this alone thy exploit lies!

(Looks through the window at the sky and at the distant
mountains.}

How all is quiet there ! The mountains — clear Even

thus the gods look reckless from the heavens at the human
race ! And what is there to see ?

(Scans the room.}

'T is terrible here to live, and let alone — to die ! But little
time is left for life. What use is there to grant one needless
hour to cruel Nemesis ? For great exploits one needs a rest,

a joyful mood, and — a good supper Glory after death

avails us not ! What happiness is this that in the future a
bearded rhetorician will expound you as a model for his
schoolboys? With future mysteries I have no dealings!
Or whether here my life will come to an end, or bodiless my
soul may live, — in any case I '11 be no longer man! But
now, while still I live, T may with honour dismiss my body,
my old servant O slave !

(Enter slave ', Lucius continuing.}

In my villa by the sea prepare a splendid supper; in the
amphitheatre, below the mountains, strew flowers on my

couch; call a ballet of Bacchantes, a chorus of Fauns and

lyres and timbrels, — not the kind of chorus as last time,
when the basso was a squeaker! Open in the garden all the
fountains. Here is the key : in the inner storeroom are some
cups of Grecian workmanship, — get them. And send at
once the slaves to call my friends. Let all come who are
alive. Thyself go to Marcellus. Ask him humbly, he has
long had in keeping some Horatian wine. Tell him that
thy master begs him not to refuse him anything, and that

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 347

to-day he deigns to die ! Well, think of everything — thou
hast been a faithful slave, and thou art not forgotten in my
testament.

(The slave falls down to his feet.)

Haggle not, nor be niggardly, — let the supper teem with
fabulous dainties ! Yes, I have forgot the main thing : go,
knock at the door of careless Pyrrha! Take basketfuls
of flowers to her and let her, laughing heedlessly, come,
brighter than springtime, to grace my supper.

(Exit slave.)

And on the knees of the dear maid I will with tensest
power of life intoxicate my soul with the fragrance of the
herbs, and with the sleeping sea, and with the sun im-
merging in the waves, and Pyrrha' s lucent beauty! And
when my senses weary feasting, she will, with gentle smiles,
give to me, not knowing it herself, the deadly draught in
wine, and I will jesting die, scarce audible, a true, wise Syb-
arite who, having surfeited his dainty appetite at the luxuri-
ous table, sleeps peaceably, surrounded by aromas.

Nikotey Aleksyeevich Nekrdsov. (1821-1877.)

Nekrdsov was the son of an impoverished landed proprietor who
served on the military staff, and of a Polish mother, who was his first
teacher. In 1832 he was sent to the Yarosldv Gymnasium. Here he
made little progress in the ancient languages and in mathematics,
and, having reached the fifth form, was obliged to leave on account
of some satires he had written against the school authorities. He
went to St. Petersburg and entered the university as a special student,
but his extreme poverty made any regular progress impossible and
undermined his health. He occasionally wrote prose stories for a
variety of periodicals, and in 1840 he published his first volume of
poems which, having been unfavourably received, he later bought up
and destroyed. Then he published a number of volumes of miscellane-
ous collections, and in 1847 became the editor of The Contemporary,
formerly Pushkin's magazine. The most active period of Nekrdsov's
life began in 1856, since when he produced all the poems by which
he lives. It is difficult to characterise Nekrdsov's poetry, as it
represents so many different aspects : there are in it elegies and
lyrics in Pushkin's best style, satires which have earned for him the
name of the Russian Juvenal, and popular verses dealing with the

348 The Nineteenth Century

life of all classes of society, especially with the peasant. The great
wealth of native scenery which he depicts, the idiomatic, inimitable
language of his poems, the objectivity of his themes, united with a
graceful lyricism, make him the most notable of Russian poets.
Among his best productions are Red-Nosed frosty Who Lives in
Russia Happily f The Peddlers, and a large number of shorter poems.
English translations : A Moral Man, by Alexander Koumanin, in
Cornhill Magazine, 1863 ; The Forgotten Village ', Village News,
Brandy, The Unreaped Plot, On the Road, and parts of The Rail-
road, In the Village, and Red-Nosed Frost, by W. R. S. Ralston, in
the Contemporary Review, vol. xxvii. (1876); Red-Nosed Frost, trans-
lated in the original metres [by J. Sumner Smith], Boston, 1886, second
edition emended, 1887 ; The Forgotten Village, The Field Unreaped,
Mary, The Hospital, The Song of the Convicts, A Mother's Tears,
in C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics, London, 1887 ; Te Deum, The
Prophet, Offer my Muse a friendly hand, Dream, A Sick Marts
Jealousy, The Landlord of Old Times, The Russian Soldier, in John
Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian, London, 1891 (The Prophet and
The Russian Soldier reprinted in Library of the World's Best Litera-
ture) ; in Free Russia, by Charlotte Sidgwick, / am weak, I am old,
and another, in vol. x., Nos. 8-10, and The Song of the Poor Wan-
derer, in vol. x., No. 12, and by Mary Grace Walker, War, in vol. x.,
No. ii ; in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, by A. C. Coolidge,
The Unmown Strip and When from thine error, in No. 14 (from the
Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895) ; by F. P. Marchant, Farewell and
/ gaz'd upon thy tomb, in No. 16; by J. Pollen, yTis May in the
meadows, in No. 19 ; by Leo Wiener and A. C. Coolidge, Who Lives
Happily in Russia ? (reprinted from Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1898),
in No. 25 ; by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, some extracts, in No. 30 ; by
Leo Wiener, The Railroad, in No. 33 ; by L. A. Magnus, The Poet to
his Love, in No. 34.

FROM "RED-NOSED FROST"

Three grievous allotments had Fortune decreed: —
Allotment the first, — with a slave man to marry;
The second, — the mother to be of his seed ;
The third, — until death his hard yoke e'er to carry.
And all these allotments so grievous did lie
On woman 'neath Russia's broad sky.

The ages have passed: all for pleasure has striven;
To manifold change all on earth has been given.

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 349

The poor peasant woman alone is forgot :
No change in her lot has God made.

Of feminine beauty and strength, we all wot,
The type, 'mong the Slavs, has decayed.

Fortuitous victim of fate !

Hast suffered unseen and unheard;
The world has not told of thy strait,

Of plaining hast uttered no word.

But me thou, my friend, wilt tell all ;

From childhood together we 've plodded: —
Fatigue and dismay on thee fall,
All misery in thee is embodied.
No heart in his breast carrieth he
Who tears doth not shed over thee.

We ' ve thus of the serf woman spoken,
However, with purpose to say : —

The type of the stately Slavonian,
Perhaps, may be found e'en to-day.

In Russ hamlets women are dwelling,
Of countenance earnest, serene ;

In all grace of movement excelling;
In bearing and look like a queen.

Perhaps they '11 escape the dim-sighted;

But one who can see says of them: —
" She passes — with sunshine all 's lighted!

And looks — 't is like giving a gem! "

The paths all our people are thronging
They follow, — the same burthens bring;

But mire, to their low lot belonging,
To them as it were does not cling.

35° The Nineteenth Century

See blooming, — a world's admiration, —
The beauty ! tall, rosy, well-shaped ;

Proficient in each occupation ;
A beauty, however she 's draped;

Both hunger and cold calmly brooking;

Content, ever patient, discreet.
I oft as she moved have been looking:

One flourish — a haycock complete !

Her kerchief is o'er her ear slipping,

Her tresses are ready to fall.
And then some young fellow comes tripping —

The rascal ! and up throws them all :

The flaxen, luxuriant tresses

O'erspread her tanned bosom, and wrap

Her little bare feet in caresses;
Her eyes, too, in darkness entrap:

She quickly her locks apart brushes,
And fiercely a glance at him throws;

Her tress-enframed, proud face with blushes
Of passion, of hot anger glows.

On work-days she likes full employment.

But strange will to you be her face
When from it the smile of enjoyment

The sigil of toil shall erase:

Such laughter, so hearty ! such measure
In song and in dance ! no such treats

With gold can be purchased. *' What pleasure! "
Each peasant to each oft repeats.

The horseman she '11 vanquish in racing;

In danger, not flinching, she '11 save:
A galloping steed boldly facing ;

To enter a burning hut, brave.

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 351

Her beautiful, regular teeth

Seem pearls, when to view them one chances;
But firmly the lips' rosy sheath

Conceals them from people's rude glances.

She rarely indulges in laughter,

For jesting she 's no time to spare;
Not oft dares her neighbour come after

Some item of her kitchen ware.

No pity has she for the tramp, —

Why country paths uselessly scour ?
Of scrupulous fitness the stamp

She bears and of immanent power.

She knows, as 't were writ in her creed,

In labour is all their salvation ;
And labour returns her the meed : —

Her household knows never privation;

They 've always a warm roof o'erhead,

Bread well-baked, and kvas of good savour;

The children are healthy, well-fed ;
For high-days there 's some extra favour.

This woman goes forth Sunday morn

To mass, all her family guiding:
Is sitting a child, two years born,

Her bosom upon, and there riding:

The mother, well dressed, by the hand

Is leading her six-years-old boy.
This picture all friends of Russ land,
All friends of Russ folk will enjoy.

— From [ J. Sumner Smith's] Red-Nosed
Frost, Boston, 1887.

352 The Nineteenth Century

A MORAL MAN

A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody — never.

I lent my friend a sum he could not pay,
I jogged his memory in a friendly way, —
Then took the law of him th' affair to end, —
The law to prison sent my worthy friend.
He died there, — not a farthing for poor me!
I am not angry, though I 've cause to be.
His debt that very moment I forgave,
And shed sad tears of sorrow o'er his grave.
A strictly moral man have I been ever,
And never injured anybody— never.

I sent my slave to learn the art of dressing

Meat; — he succeeded,— a good cook 's a blessing;

But he too oft would leave his occupation,

And gained a taste not suited to his station.

He liked to read, to reason, and discuss —

I, tired of scolding, without further fuss

Had the rogue flogged, — all for the love of him:

He went and drowned himself, — 't was a strange whim.

A strictly moral man have I been ever,

And never injured anybody — never.

My silly daughter fell in love one day,

And with her tutor wished to run away :

I threatened curses and pronounced my ban;

She yielded, and espoused a rich old man.

Their house was splendid, brimming o'er with wealth,

But suddenly poor Mary lost her health,

And in a year consumption wrought her doom:

She left us mourning o'er her early tomb.

A strictly moral man have I been ever,

And never injured anybody — never.

— By Alexander Koumanin, in Cornhill
Magazine, 1863.

Nikolay Aleksy6evich Nekrasov 353

FROM "WHO LIVES IN RUSSIA HAPPILY"

EPILOGUE

What year it was, — you figure out!

What land it was, — you guess yourself!

Upon a level country road

Were gathered seven muzhiks:

They all had masters whom they served

I' the Government of Strained- too-hard,

The county called Enduring-much,

The district Fallowlandedness,

In villages hard by :

In Patchedupville and Raggedtown,

In Emptyville and Freezingtown,

In Burnedupville, and Hungerville,

And in Cropf ailingthorpe ;

They met and quarrelled straight away :

" Who lives in Russia happily

And to his heart's content ? "

Romdn declared—" The landowner,"

Demydn declared — " The bureaucrat,"

Lukd declared—" The priest."

" The merchant with his goodly paunch,"

The Gubin brothers both declared,

Ivan and Mitrodor.

But old Pakhom looked gloomily

Upon the ground, and said at last:

1 ' The gentleman of noble birth,

The minister of the Emperor, ' '

While Prov declared: "The Tsar."

Muzhiks are stubborn like the ox :
Let any nonsense fill their heads,
You cannot pound it out of them,
Each one sticks to his mind.
They started such a loud dispute

VOL. II.— 23.

354 The Nineteenth Century

That all the passers-by averred

They must have found a treasure-trove,

The fuss is — to divide.

That forenoon each had left his house,

On business each had sallied out :

One to the blacksmith's shop was bound,

One to the town Ivdnkovo

To call the priest Prokopius,

His baby to baptise.

Pakh6m was taking honeycombs

To market in Velikoe,

And both the brothers Gubin had

With bridle started out to catch

The wild horse of the herd.

'T were better that they long ago

Had gone each one where business called,

Yet they together keep !

They walk as if there were grey wolves

Behind them, chasing after them, —

The farther, quicker still ;

They walk, they brawl unceasingly;

They cry and do not come to sense,

But time waits not for them.

They quarrelled on, they did not see

The sun was red, was sinking fast, —

The evening had set in.

In faith, they would have walked all night,

They would have walked not knowing where,

If pockmarked old Durdndikha

Had not addressed them, meeting them,

And spoken to them : "Gentlemen!

As night has come upon you, where

Do you intend to go ? "

The old witch asked, then laughed aloud ;
She struck her gelding with a whip,
And galloped out of sight.

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 355

Where were they ? As they gazed around,

They did not know themselves;

They stood, they paused, they drooped their heads, -

'T was night-time long ago,

The stars were twinkling way above

Upon the vaulted sky.

The moon swam out, the shadows dark

Stopped further headlong gait.

O shadows, shadows black and thick !

Who is there that you will not catch ?

Of whom will you not get ahead ?

And yet there 's no one, shadows black,

Can seize you and embrace !

Into the wood and down the road
Pakhom looked round him silently;
He looked, he pondered in his mind,
And then at last he said:

" The wood spirit has played on us
A pretty joke to-night!
Indeed we must have surely tramped
Some thirty versts ' at least;
And, as for walking home again, —
We 're tired, we should peter out.
Sit down — there 's nothing to be done —
's rest till break of day! " -

Then blaming loud the wood spirit,
Beside the road, right in the wood,
The peasants sat them down.
They made a fire, each did his part,
And two of them for v6dka a went,
The while the others to the wood
Repaired to make a drinking cup

1 A verst is about three-fifths of a mile.

8 The national liquor in Russia, consumed in large quantities.

356 The Nineteenth Century

Of bark stripped from the birch.

The v6dka came in proper time;

There also somehow came some food, —

A feast for the muzhiks!

Three glasses each man had to drink ;

They ate, — they quarrelled once again:

" Who lives in Russia happily

And to his heart's content ? "

Romdn cried out: " The landowner,"

Demyan cried out: " The bureaucrat,"

I^uka cried out : "The priest ' ' ;

" The merchant with his goodly paunch,"—

The Gubin brothers both cried out,

Ivan and Mitrod6r.

Pakh6m cried out: " His Excellence,

The gentleman of noble birth,

The minister of the Emperor,"

And Prov cried out: "The Tsar! "

Thus worse than ever brawled again

The quarrelsome muzhiks;

They cursed, they called each other names,

Till soon enough they came to blows,

And grabbed each other's hair.

I/ook ! as each one has grabbed the next,

Roman is hitting at Pakhom,

Demyan hits at L/uka,

And both the brothers Gubin hit

At Prov — while each one yells.

The far-resounding echo woke,

And rolling wandered on and on,

And louder cried from side to side,

As if to tease, to imitate,

The obstinate muzhiks.

11 The Tsar! " it spoke to the right of them,

But to the left the answer came :

* ' The priest ! The priest ! The priest ! ' '

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 357

Then all the wood was full of fright:
The very birds that flit about,
The very beasts, the swift-footed,
The very crawling, creeping things, —
'T was groan and roar and bawl.

The grey-haired rabbit, first of all,

From out the bush jumped suddenly

And looked around distractedly, —

He jumped and disappeared.

The youthful jackdaws perched aloft

Upon a birch-tree standing near

Set up a piteous squeak.

And in the neighbouring peewit's home

The baby from its mother's nest

Was scared and tumbled out.

The little peewit chirped and wept:

Where is her birdie gone ?

The old and feeble cuckoo woke,

Awoke and sat there wondering

If she should cuckoo now ;

Ten times, at least, she made a start,

But every time she lost the beat,

And had to start again

You cuckoo, cuckoo, dear old bird !

As soon as wheat is in the ear

You '11 choke yourself with wheaten ears,1

You '11 cuckoo then no more.

Next, seven horncoots from all sides

Have gathered to enjoy the fight, —

They peer from seven trees :

These midnight ones are laughing loud ;

Their large round eyes of yellow hue

Are burning just like fourteen lights

Of pure and virgin wax.

The raven, bird of common-sense,

1 According to a popular superstition in Russia the cuckoo is silent
when the wheat is in the ear.

358 The Nineteenth Century

Is here and sitting on a tree

Beside the burning fire;

He sits and to the devil prays

That they may somehow pound to death

At least one of the lot.

The cow, that with her bell had strayed

Away that evening from the herd,

Approached, attracted by the sound

Of human voices' tones.

She slowly walked up to the fire,

She stared at the muzhiks.

She listened to their foolish talk,

And then began with all her might

To low, to low, to low.

The silly cow is lowing loud,
The youthful jackdaws squeak and pipe,
' The seven muzhiks are boisterous, —
The echo seconds all.
The echo has but this desire:
To tease an honest man, to scare
A woman or a child.
No one has ever seen it yet,
But all have heard it more than once:
Without a body — yet it lives,
Without a tongue — it cries.

The owl, a Moscow princess once,1

Is flitting here from side to side;

She flies above the peasants' heads,

Or with her wings sweeps o'er the ground

Or o'er the bush nearby.

The fox himself, of crafty mind,
With womanish curiosity
Crept close to the muzhiks.
He listened, listened carefully,

*A Russian legend.

Nikolay Aleksyeevich Nekrasov 359

And went away at last convinced —
" The Deuce can't make it out " ;
The brawlers hardly knew themselves, —
They had forgotten by that time
The cause of all the row.

They hit each other lustily,

Came to their senses finally, —

Agreed to strike no more.

They drank some water from the pool,

They washed themselves, refreshed themselves,

And sleepiness set in.

— Transl. by L. Wiener, revised by A. C. Coolidge, in
The Harvard Monthly, January, 1898, and in
The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 25.

THE UNMOWN STRIP

Late in the autumn, the rooks are diverted;
Bare is the forest, the field is deserted.

Only one strip which is lying unmown :
Sad are its musings in stillness alone.

" Truly,'* each blade to the other is sighing,
" Weary are we of the autumn wind crying:

Weary of bowing to earth as we must,
Burying our grain-laden heads in the dust.

Scarce is it night, when the birds flocking near us
Halt on their passage to greedily tear us.

Hares tread us down, and the storm vents its hate. —
Where is our peasant ? What more does he wait ?

Were we, then, worse at our birth than all others ?
Have we not sprouted and grown like our brothers ?

360 The Nineteenth Century

No! We 're not worse than the rest. L,ong in vain
In us hath germed and hath ripened the grain.

Was it for this he was ploughing and sowing,

That we should bend to the autumn gales blowing ? "

Borne on the breeze the sad answer came back :
' ' It is the power your peasant doth lack.

He knew the why of his ploughing and sowing,
Started his work, but his strength all unknowing.

Ill fares the wight, he can drink not nor eat ;
For his sick heart is the canker-worm's seat.

And the strong arms that his plough used to guide him,
Dried to dead stalks, now like whips hang beside him.

Dim were his eyes, and his voice hollow rang;
Mournful indeed was the song that he sang

When with his hand at the plough ever present,
Wrapped in his thoughts, o'er the strip moved the peasant."
— By A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895.

A MOTHER'S TEARS

With each fresh victim in the strife,
When war's dire terrors round us roll,

I pity neither friend, nor wife,
I pity not the heroic soul.

The wife will soon new comfort gain,
His friend the best of friends forget,

And scarce a single soul remain,
That, until death, remembers yet.

Amid the poor, prosaic round

Of things, which here so falsely show,

Ivin Savich Nikitin 361

No tears are true, and sacred, found,
Save such as from a mother flow.

The sons, in battlefield who sleep,

Her tears to memory fond recall ;
E'en like to willow- trees, which weep

O'er boughs, that ever earthward fall.

— From C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics.

Ivdn Sdvich Nikitin. (1824-1861.)

Nikitin was born in Vor6nezh, the birthplace of Kolts6v (see p.
176), where his father was a chandler. At eight years of age he en-
tered a religious school, and later, in 1841, the Seminary in his na-
tive town. He wrote his first poem while at school, but only in 1853
did he succeed in having his verses printed in the Vor6nezh Govern-
mental Gazette. These brought him in contact with the local cult-
ured society who encouraged him to write more. His first volume
of collected poetry was not favourably received by the literary circles
of St. Petersburg, who saw in Nikitin's verses mere imitations of
Kolts6v and Nekrasov ; his reputation has, however, risen since, and
he is counted among the better popular poets. Among his best
verses are The Ploughman, The Plough, The Wife of the Driver,
The Fist, while such poems as The Morning, The Swallow's Nest,
A Winter Night in the Village, belong to the most popular of Russian
songs.

W. R. S. Ralston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii. (1874), has
translated The Stubborn Father, Burlak, A Winter Night in the
Village. In C. T. Wilson's Russian Lyrics are translated The
YamshchiVs Wife, The Grandfather, The State of the Departed,
The Churchyard. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 28,
F. P. Marchant translated The Inheritance, and in No. 30 Mrs. Rosa
Newmarch gives a part of The Village Money-Lender and The
Gaffer.

BURLlK '

Ah, friends! You too have had your sorrows, -—else
A song would never make you weep. Well now,
Just hear what I have gone through, — then you '11 know
What sorrow really means.

A labourer towing boats up the V61ga.

362 The Nineteenth Century

My father died

When I was just nineteen, and I was left
An orphan, and at first alone, — but soon
A neighbour's daughter won my heart; I pleased her,
And we were married, — happily did we live
Together. I could fancy she had brought me
Happiness with her — (Heaven be hers, poor thing !)
You can't conceive how good a manager
She was, — she would n't waste a single farthing.
In the long winter evenings, she would light
A firewood splinter, and then spin away
For hours, — not pausing till the cock would crow.
Then would she lay her down, — but with the dawn
She was up again, — would run to give their food
To the sheep and cows, — next light the fire, — and then
Betake her to the spinning-wheel again,
Or find some other indoor work to do.
When summer came, she helped to cut the rye
And carry it, nor ever weary. I would say,
"Is n't it time to rest?"

"Oh, no! "she'd cry,
"I 'm not a bit tired."—

Every now and then

Perhaps I 'd buy her something as a present.
" You need n't have done that, my bonny bird,"
She 'd say, " we love each other much too well
To care for presents — don't go wasting money
On me."—

My life with her was just as if
I 'd been in Paradise.

But no one knows
How calamity may fall upon him !
My wife lay down to rest within the grave, —
The world grows dark whene'er I think of it.

My only consolation was my child, —

I 'd only one, — a fair-skinned, dark-haired boy,

Iv&n Savich Nikitin 363

As like his mother as one drop to another;—
He had begun to spell a bit already,
And I to think, " My boy will be a man."
But that was not God's pleasure.— In the spring
He got some kind of sickness. We called in
Wise women, soothsayers, had magic drinks
For him to take. I promised I would give
A rouble for a candle, — to be burnt

Before the holy image in the church

But God refused to listen to my5 prayer —
I had to lay my darling in the coffin,
And bear him to the graveyard.

In those days,

Those dreary days, 't was bitter for me, friends!
My heavy arms hung listlessly, — my neighbours
Gathered their harvest. All the fields around
Were blithe with song — But there I pined away
With heavy sorrow. When the day was done,
The heavy-laden carts would come from the field
And in a line drive creaking through the village.
But in my cottage I would sit alone
Trying to stem my tears.

The autumn passed.

I waited till the first snow fell.— Methought
I '11 sell my rye, fit up a sledge, and go
And earn a living with it somewhere.

Suddenly

Woe upon woe ! A murrain seized my cattle, —
Never until I die shall I forget
That fatal year.—

I managed to get through
The winter somehow. But I saw I 'd lost
My old position. In our village meetings,
This one would flout me, saying: — " Good! It seems
The barest beggar thinks he has the right
To meddle in the business of the Commune ! ' '
That one would gird at me behind my back,

364 The Nineteenth Century

And cry : — ' ' The lazy fellow ! Such a one as he
Will never gain his bread. In my opinion,
If one 's a man, one never will give way,
Whatever happens/'

All this talk and laughter
Aroused me; — God assisted me, I think.
I felt a longing for a freer life.
I got a passport, paid up all my taxes,
And joined the bargemen.

Since that time my grief

Has yielded to the V6lga's dark blue wave

Rest follows toil : upon the river side

Bright burns the evening fire, — a comrade starts

A song, — the rest join in, — your spirits rise, —

A thrill runs o'er your limbs, — you sing yourself.

And if at times a dreary season comes,

And half-forgotten sorrows vex your soul, —

There 's solace still. You hear the river's roar,

Singing a freedom to the sweeping plain.

Fast beats your heart; — you burn, — though wintry cold

The weather, yet you want no cloak to warm you.

Aboard and take your seat ! Fall back on the oar !

Pleasant it is to brave the Russian storm.

The waves run mountain -high, — in snowy flakes

The foam flies fast; strange voices groan and wail.

The tempest roars and whistles, — from your soul

A cry arises: " I^et God's will be done.

If we 're to live, we '11 live. And if to die, —

Well then, so be it ! " And you feel as though

Your heart had never known what sorrow meant.

—From W. R. S. Ralston's Russian Idylls, in The
Contemporary Review, 1874 (vol. xxiii.).

THE GAFFER

Old Gaffer, with his beard and smooth bald head,

Sits in his chair.
His little mug of water, and his bread,

Stand near him there.

Aleksyey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev 365

Grey as a badger he: his brow is lined;

His features worn.
He 's left a world of cark and care behind,

Since he was born.

'T is over now, his eyesight soon must go;

His strength is done.
Death laid within the churchyard long ago

Grandchild and son.

A cat the smoke-grimed hut with Gaffer shares —

Upon the stove
All day he sleeps. He too is old, nor cares

From thence to move.

The old man still plaits shoes, with fingers slow,

From bark of birch.
His wants are few, his greatest joy to go

Into God's church.

He stands within the porch, against the wall,

Mutt' ring his prayers.
A loyal child, he thanks the L,ord for all

Life's griefs and cares.

Cheery he lives, — with one foot in the grave, —

In his dark hole.
Whence does he draw the strength that keeps him brave,

Poor peasant soul ?

— Transl. by Mrs. R. Newmarch, in The Anglo-
Russian Literary Society, No. 30.

Aleksyey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev. (1825-1894.)

Pleshcheev was the most cultivated and the most sympathetic poet
who belonged to Nekrdsov's camp. He was born in the city of Kos-
tromd, of an ancient noble family. He studied at St. Petersburg at
the School of the Guard Cadets and at the university, without gradu-
ating from either. He began writing poetry at the age of eighteen,
and in 1846 appeared the first edition of his poems. These were

366 The Nineteenth Century

pervaded by a militant spirit of liberty, and soon his sympathies with
the liberal movement brought him into trouble, for he was arrested
in 1849 and banished to Orenburg, with loss of all his civil rights.
He there served in the army as a common soldier, but rose in 1858 to
the rank of a commissioned officer, when his privileges were restored
to him, and he was permitted to return to Moscow. Up to that time
he had entirely abandoned literature, but now his former activity
began anew, and he enriched Russian letters with a large number of
translations from various languages, and with original lyrical verses.
These no longer are filled with the aspirations of his youth, but bear
the imprint of melancholy disappointment and renunciation.

Spring and Passion are given in John Pollen's Rhymes from the
Russian^ and N. H. Dole has translated A Legend (publication
unascertainable).

FORWARD

Forward, without fear or doubt, to the valiant deed, my
friends ! I have already seen the dawn of the holy redemp-
tion in the skies !

Courage! We will take each other's hands and boldly
will move onward,— and let our union grow and be strong
under the banner of science !

We will chastise the priests of sin and falsehood with the
word of truth, — and we will awaken the sleeping from their
sleep and will lead the host to battle.

We will not build an idol for ourselves, either upon
earth, or in heaven; we will not fall before it in the dust
for all the gifts and benefits of the world.

We will proclaim the teaching of Love to the poor and to
the rich, — and for it we will endure persecution, forgiving
our malevolent enemies.

Blessed is he who has exhausted his life in a sanguinary
struggle, in heavy cares; he has not, like an indolent and
tricky slave, buried his talent in the ground !

Let holy truth burn as a guiding star for us, — and, believe
me, a noble voice will not resound in vain in the world.

Hearken, then, O brothers, to the word of a brother, as
long as we are full of youthful strength ! Forward, forward,
—and without returning, whatever fate may have in store
for us !

Aleksy£y Nikolaevich Pleshch6ev

MY COUNTRY

Scanty Nature of my native land, you are dear to my sad
soul ! Formerly, in the days of my fleeting spring, the dis-
tant shores of other countries enticed me.

And my glowing imagination painted brilliant pictures be-
fore me : I saw the transparently blue vault of the heavens,
and the crenelated summits of mighty mountains.

Merged in the gold of midday beams, it seemed to me, the
myrtle, the planes, and the olive trees called me into the
shade of spreading branches, and roses beckoned silently to
me

Those were days when my spirit did not ponder, among
the seductions of life, over the aims of existence, and, being
frivolous, I only demanded enjoyment from it.

But that time speedily disappeared without a trace, — and
grief unexpectedly visited me, and much with which my
soul was not familiar suddenly became dear to it.

I then abandoned my secret dream of a magic and distant
land, — and in my country I discovered beauties invisible to
the worldly eye.

Furrowed fields, ears of yellow grain-fields, the speechless,
majestic expanse of the steppes, the freshets of broad rivers
in the spring, mysteriously rustling oak-forests;

Sacred silence of poor villages, where the labourer, op-
pressed by misery, prayed to heaven for a new, a better day,
— the great day of liberty, to rise over him ;

I understood you then, — and near to my heart suddenly
grew the song of my native land, whether in that song was
heard deep pining or unrestrained hilarity.

My country, nothing in thee captivates the stranger's eye;
but thou art dear by thy stern beauty to him who himself
has yearned for freedom and the wide expanse, and whose
spirit has borne oppressive fetters.

A LEGEND

Christ, when a child, a garden made,
And many roses flourished there.

368 The Nineteenth Century

He watered them three times a day

To make a garland for His hair;
And when in time the roses bloomed,

He called the children in to share.
They tore the flowers from every stem,

And left the garden stript and bare.

" How wilt Thou weave Thyself a crown

Now that Thy roses are all dead ? "
1 ' Ye have forgotten that the thorns

Are left for me," the Christ-child said.
They plaited then a crown of thorns,

And laid it rudely on His head, —
A garland for His forehead made;

For roses, drops of blood instead.
— Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication unascertainable).

SPRING

Ah! who art thou, fair maid, with upland flowers

Twined in the glossy silk of golden hair,
With smile sunbright, with eyes the dove in hue,

With ray-like raiment spun from upper air ?
Who gifted thee with deep mysterious power

To heal the aching heart of human woe ?
At thy approach delights that long lay dead

Revive, and once again with glad life glow.
To honour thee a hymn doth Nature raise;

The babbling brooks and birds in chorus blend;
And pine-woods dark, shimmering in every spray,

To thee, as to a friend, their arms extend.

I 'm but a Stranger- Guest, sent from on high
To weary souls a draught of peace to bring,

To soften wrath, to soothe fierce enmity ;
I 'm but a Stranger-Guest, — they call me " Spring."
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovski 369
Aleksdndr Nikol£evich Ostr6vski. (1823-1886.)

No other dramatist is so characteristically Russian as Ostr6vski.
His father was a poor scribe who acted as a kind of attorney to that
merchant class of Moscow which had not yet emerged from the
manners and beliefs preceding the days of the reforms of Peter the
Great. Ostr6vski had, consequently, ample opportunity of getting
acquainted with these people, who had heretofore entirely escaped
the scrutiny of the litterateurs. When, in 1843, he was expelled from
the university for some misbehaviour, he found employment in the
Commercial Court, where he again came in contact with the mer-
chant class. He had early developed a passion for the theatre, and
in 1847 appeared two of his dramas, Pictures of Family Happiness
and We 'II Square up Accounts with Our Own. The latter play gave
offence to the merchants, who complained to the authorities, and
Ostr6vski was placed under police surveillance. Only five years
later did he take up his pen again, and as before he had strictly ad-
hered to the traditions of G6gol's school, so now he paid his tribute
to the Slavophile sentiments of Moscow by idealising his characters.
The best drama of that period is Poverty is no Vice. After the
Crimean War he began to represent in his dramas the negative sides
of the wealthy merchant class, and to oppose to them the honesty
and dignity of intelligent men. His chief production, The Storm,
belongs to that period. He also tried himself in historical dramas,
or Dramatic Chronicles, as he called them, but they are the weakest
of his works. All his dramas are more properly realistic scenes lack-
ing the element of conscious effect : they are supremely natural and
tax the ability of the greatest actors. Ostr6vski's dramas soon be-
came very popular, and he was elected president of the Society of
Russian Dramatic Authors. Just before his death the Moscow
Theatre was put in his charge, but his new activity was cut short by
his illness, brought about by years of privation and suffering.

In English translation are to be found : The Storm, by Constance
Garnett, London, 1899 ; Incompatibility of Temper and A Domestic
Picture, in The Humour of Russia, by E. L. Voynich, London and
New York, 1895. Extracts from several dramas are given in The
Modern Russian Drama, in Edinburgh Review, cxxviii. (1868).

THE STORM

ACT v. SCENE i. TWILIGHT. KULiGiN (sitting on a bench),

KABANOV (walking in the square]
Kulfgin (singing}.

" In darkness shrouded are the skies, —
To rest themselves all close their eyes."

37° The Nineteenth Century

(noticing Kabandv}. Good-evening, sir! Which way are
you bound ?

Kabandv. Home. Good friend, have you heard what has
happened with us ? Our whole family is upset.

Kuligin. Yes, I have heard so, sir.

Kabandv. I have been away to Moscow, you know.
Mamma kept giving me all kinds of instructions for my
journey, but no sooner I got away, than I began having a
good time. I was so happy to be free. I drank all the way
up, and I kept on drinking in Moscow. I just went on a
spree to last me for a whole year ! Not even once did I stop
to think of home, and if I did, I never should have dreamed
what has happened here. You have heard about it ?

Kuligin. Yes, I have, sir.

Kabandv. My friend, I am a miserable man now ! I am
ruined just for nothing, for no cause at all.

Kuligin. Your mother is rather harsh.

Kabandv. That 's so. She is the cause of it all. Do tell
me, why should I suffer for it ? I just stopped at Dikoy's, —
well, we took a drink together; I thought it might make me
feel easier, but no, Kuligin, it 's worse! See, how my wife
has treated me ! It could not be worse

Kuligin. It 's a mixed-up affair, sir. It is hard to judge
between you.

Kabandv. No, don't say that. What can there be worse ?
It is not enough to kill her for that. Mamma says she ought
be buried alive for a punishment! But I love her, and it
makes me feel bad to lay a finger upon her. I did give her
some blows, but mamma told me to do so. You must under-
stand, Kuligin, that I feel sorry for her. Mamma torments
her to death, and she walks around like a shadow and does
not say a word. She does nothing but weep, and she is
melting away like wax. And I worry myself to death, as I
look at her.

Kuligin. Could you not, sir, make up with her? You
ought to forgive her, and never mention the affair again. I
suppose you yourself are not without sin !

Kabandv. Of course not !

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovski 371

Kuligin. Only you must not reproach her when you are
drunk ! She would make you a good wife, sir, I am sure,
better than any other.

Kabanov. Don't you see, Kuligin, it is all right with me,
but mamma — there is no getting along with her !

Kuligin. It is time, sir, to live by your own wits.

Kabanov. Well, what am I to do, — to tear myself to
pieces? They say, I have no sense of my own, and so I
have to live by other people's sense. I tell you, I '11 drink
away whatever little sense I have left, let mamma then
bother with me as with a senseless fool.

Kuligin. It is bad, sir! Well, and Boris Grig6revich>
what about him ?

Kabandv. They are sending that scoundrel to Kydkhta,
into China. His uncle is sending him to the office of a mer-
chant whom he knows there. He is going there for three
years.

Kuligin. Well, what does he do, sir ?

Kabandv. He is suffering, too : he weeps. We fell upon
him, his uncle and I, and we kept scolding him, but he did
not say a word. He acts like a wild man. " Do with me
what you please," says he, "only do not torment her!"
He is pitying her too.

Kuligin. He is a good man, sir.

Kabandv. He is ready for the journey, and the horses are
waiting. He is pining for her dreadfully. He wants to say
good-bye to her, I see. What do I care? He has done
enough harm. He is my enemy, you know, Kuligin ! He
ought to be quartered, so that he might know

Kuligin. We must forgive our enemies, sir !

Kabanov. Go and talk to mamma about that, and see what
she will tell you. Yes, friend Kulfgin, all our family is
now broken up. They are acting not like relatives to each
other, but like enemies. Mamma has been nagging Varvara
so long ; she could stand it no longer, and so she just got up,
and ran away.

Kuligin. Where has she gone ?

Kabandv. Who knows ? They say she has run away with

372 The Nineteenth Century

Vanka Kudryash, and he can't be found anywhere either.
Now, Kuligin, I must tell you that is all mamma's doing:
she has been tormenting her, and locking her up. " Don't
lock me up," she said, " or it will be only worse! " And
just so it has happened. Do tell me, what I am to do now!
Do instruct me how to live now ! I loathe the house, I am
ashamed to meet people, and if I try to work, my hands
drop helpless. Here I am going home, but it is not to find
pleasure there. (Enter Gldsha)

Gldsha. Tikhon Ivanych !

Kabandv. What is it now ?

Gldsha. Things have gone wrong at home, sir!

Kabandv. L,ord ! There has been enough trouble ! Speak,
what is it ?

Gldsha. Your good wife

Kabanov. Well, what ? Is she dead ?

Gldsha. No, sir, she has gone off, and we can't find her
anywhere. We have run our legs off, trying to find her.

Kabandv. Kuligin! We must look for her. Do you know,
friend, what I am afraid of? That in her wretchedness she
may lay hands upon herself! It is just terrible, how she is
grieving! It makes my heart burst to look at her. (To
Gldsha.) That is the way you have watched her. Is it
long she has been gone ?

Gldsha. Not very long, sir! It is our fault, we did not
watch her better. However, one can't be watching every
minute.

Kabandv. Well, what are you standing for? Go, run!
(Exit Gldsha.) Let us go, too, Kuligin! (Exeunt. The
stage is empty for a little while. From the opposite side enters
Katerina, and slowly walks across the stage.)

SCKNE 2. KATKRiNA ALONE. (During the whole monologue
and the following scenes she speaks slowly and repeats
words, as if in thought and in a state offorgetfulness.)

Katerina. No, he is nowhere! What is he doing now, —
the poor fellow ? If I only could bid him good-bye, and then

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovski 373

— and then I do not mind dying. Why did I lead him into
misfortune ? I am no better off for that ! I alone ought to
suffer! As it is, I have ruined myself, and I have ruined
him: tome — dishonour, to him — eternal remorse! Yes, to
me — dishonour, to him — eternal remorse. (Silence.} If. I
only could think what he said to me ? How he pitied me ?
What were the words he said ? (Clasps her head.) I can't
remember them, I have forgotten everything. The nights,
the nights weigh heavily upon me ! All lie down to sleep,
I too. All feel well, but I feel as if I were going into the
grave. It is so terrible in the dark ! I hear a noise and
singing, as if they were burying someone, only so soft, and

barely heard, far, far from me How glad one is when

daylight comes! But I do not like to get up, — the same
people again, the same talks, the same torment. Why do
they look that way at me ? Why don't they kill nowadays ?
Why have they changed it ? They say, they used to kill.
If they took and threw me into the Volga, I should be
happy. ' * If we kill you, ' ' they say, ' ' your sin will be taken
from you; so live and be tormented for your sin." I have
suffered enough ! How much longer shall I suffer ? What
am I to live for now, yes, what for? I want nothing, —
nothing gives me pleasure, God's world gives me no pleas-
ure ! But death does not come. You call for it, but it does
not come. Whatever I see, whatever I hear, causes me pain
here (points to her heart}. If I could live with him, maybe
there would be some pleasure yet for me. Well, what dif-
ference does it make ? I have lost my soul anyway. How
I long for him! Oh, how I long for him! If I cannot see
you, hear me at least from far away! Boisterous winds,
bear my grief to him ! O lyord, I am weary, I am weary !
( Walks to the river bank and cries at the top of her voice:) My
joy, my soul, my life, I love you! Answer! ( Weeps. Enter
Boris)

SCENE 3. KATERINA AND BORIS

Boris (not seeing Katerina). O Lord! That is her voice!
Where is she ? (Looks round.)

374 The Nineteenth Century

Katerina (runs up to him and falls on his neck). At last I
see you again ! ( Weeps on his breast. Silence.)

Boris. Well, God has granted us to weep together.

Katerina. You have not forgotten me ?

Boris. How can you speak of forgetting ?

Katerina. Oh, no, it was not that, not that! You are not
angry ?

Boris. Angry for what ?

Katerina. Forgive me! I did not mean to do you any
harm : I was not free myself. I did not know what I said,
and what I did.

Boris. Don' t speak of it ! Don' t !

Katerina. Well, how is it with you ? What are you going
to do?

Boris. I am going away.,

Katerina. Where are you going ?

Boris. Far away, Kdtya, to Siberia.

Katerina. Take me away from here.

Boris. I can' t, Kdtya. I am not going of my own will : my
uncle is sending me off, and the horses are waiting already.
My uncle gave me but a minute to be away; I wanted to
bid farewell to the place where we used to see each other.

Katerina. God speed you ! Do not grieve over me. At
first, I suppose, you, poor fellow, will pine for me, but you
will soon forget me.

Boris. I/et us not talk of me ! I am a free bird ! But how
will it be with you ? What of your mother-in-law ?

Katerina. She torments me, she locks me up. She tells
everybody, and my husband too: " Do not trust her, she is
sly ! ' ' They follow me all day and laugh at me before my
eyes. At every word they reproach me with you.

Boris. And your husband ?

Katerina. He is now kind, and now angry, but he is
drinking all the time. I loathe him, I loathe him ; I loathe
his kindness worse than his blows.

Boris. It is hard for you, Katya.

Katerina. Yes, so hard, so hard, that death would be
easier!

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovski 375

Boris. Who could have told that we would have to suffer
so for our love ? It would have been better if I had run
away then.

Katerina. It was for misfortune that I saw you. I have
seen little joy, but oh, how much sorrow! And how much
there is still ahead of me ! Well, what use is there to think
of what will be ? I am seeing you now, and that they will
not take away from me ! I need nothing else. All I wanted
was to see you. Now I feel much more at ease : as though
a mountain had rolled off my shoulders. And there, I
thought that you were angry with me, that you cursed
me

Boris. How could you ? How could you ?

Katerina. No, it is not that I mean. I wanted to say
something else. I was longing for you, that is it; and now,
I have seen you

Boris. If they should find us here !

Katerina. Wait, wait! I wanted to tell you some-
thing ! I have forgotten again ! Something important I
had to tell you! my head is in a whirl, I can't remember
anything.

Boris. It is time for me to go, Katya!

Katerina, Wait, wait!

Boris. Well, what was it you wanted to say ?

Katerina. I will tell you right away. (Thinking a mo-
ment.} Yes! As you will travel on the road, don't let any
beggar go by without giving him something, and tell them
to pray for my sinful soul.

Boris. Ah, if these people knew how hard it is for me to
leave you ! God grant they may some day feel as bad as I
do now ! Good-bye, Katya ! (Embraces her and is about to
go.) Rascals! Monsters! If I only had the power !

Katerina. Wait, wait! Let me take a last look at you!
(Looks into his eyes.} That will do me! Now, God be with
you ! Go, go quickly !

Boris (walks a few steps and stops). Katya, something is
wrong ! You have something in your mind ! I shall worry
on my journey, thinking of you!

376 The Nineteenth Century

Katerina. No, no! God speed you! (Boris is about to
walk up to her.} Don't, don't, that is enough!

Boris (sobbing). Well, God be with you! I must pray to
God that she may die soon, that she may not suffer long !
Farewell ! ( Greets her. )

Katerina. Farewell ! (Exit Boris. Katerina follows him
with her eyes and stands a while, lost in thought.}

SCENE 4. KATERINA (alone}

Where shall I go now ? Home ? No, I might as well go
into the grave. What — home, what — grave? It is better

in the grave A little grave under a tree — how nice!

The sun warms it, the rain waters it — in the spring

the grass, the soft grass will grow up — the birds will fly to
that tree, they will sing, and will bring up their little ones,
the flowers will bloom: yellow, red, blue, all kinds of flowers

(in thought), all kinds of flowers How quiet! how

nice ! I almost feel better ! I do not wish even to think of
life ! To live again ? No, no, I do not wish it — it is not
good ! I loathe the people, I loathe the house, I loathe the
•walls! I will not go there! No, no, I will not! If I go
to them, they will come and talk to me, and what is that to
me? Ah, it is dark! And they are singing somewhere!

What are they singing ? I cannot make it out Oh, if

I could die now What are they singing ? It is all the

same whether death will come to me, or I myself — no, I
cannot live ! It is a sin ! They will not pray for me ? He

who loves me, will pray They cross the hands over the

breast — in the coffin! Yes, it is so — I remember. And

if they catch me, they will take me home by force Ah,

quickly, quickly! (Goes to the river bank. Aloud.) My
friend! My joy! Farewell! (Exit. Enter Mrs. Kabandv,
Kabandv, Kuligin, and a workman with a lantern.}

SCENE 5. MRS. KABANOV, KABANOV, AND KUWGIN

Kuligin. They say, they saw her here.
Kabandv. Is it certain ?

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovski 377

Kuligin. They certainly saw her.

Kabandv. Thank the Lord they saw her alive.

Mrs. Kabanov. And you have been frightened and crying !
And for whom? Don't fret: she will give us plenty of
trouble yet.

Kabandv. Who would have thought that she would come
here ! It is such a public place. Who would ever think of
hiding here.

Mrs. Kabanov. You see for yourself what she is doing.
The creature she is! She wants to keep up her character!
(People come from all sides with lanterns.)

One of the Crowd. Well, have you found her?

Mrs. Kabanov. Why, no. She is vanished.

A Few Voices. I declare! That is strange ! Where could
she hide ?

One of the Crowd. She will be found !

Another. Of course, she will be!

A Third. She will come herself, I tnink. (A voice behind
the scene : " Hoa there, a boat! ")

Kuligin (from the river bank}. Who is calling ? What is
up ? ( Voice : "A woman has thrown herself in the water ! ' '
Kuligin and several men after him run out.)

SCENE 6. THE SAME WITHOUT KUUGIN

Kabandv. O God, it is she! (Wants to run off. Mrs.
Kabandv holds him back.) Mamma, let me go, I must! I
will save her! or I will myself— what is the use of living
without her !

Mrs. Kabandv. I will not let you, indeed not! Kill your-
self for her sake ! — is she worth it ? She has brought enough
disgrace on us without this !

Kabandv. Let me !

Mrs. Kabandv. They '11 save her without you. I '11 curse
you if you go.

Kabandv {falling on his knees). Just to look at her!

Mrs. Kabandv. You will look at her when they have
pulled her out.

37$ The Nineteenth Century

Kabanov (rises. To the crowd.} Well, friends, did you
see anything ?

First. It is dark down there, you can't see anything. {A
noise behind the scene.}

Second. They are calling there, but I can't make out what.

First. That is Kuligin's voice.

Second. They are walking along the bank with a lantern.

First. They are coming this way. They are carrying her.
(A few people are returning.)

One of the Returning Men. Kulfgin is a fine fellow! Here
close by, in the whirlpool, by the shore: with the fire we
could see a distance off in the water, and he saw her dress,
and pulled her out.

Kaban6v. Is she alive ?

Another Man. Alive ? Why, she leaped high : the bank
is steep here, and she must have fallen on an anchor, the
poor woman is bruised! And yet, my friends, she looks as
though alive! Only on the temple there is a small wound,
and only one small drop of blood. (Kaban6v starts to run,
and meets Kuligin with the people carrying Katerina.)

SCENE 7. THE SAME AND KUIylGIN

Kuligin. Here is your Katerina. Do with her what you
please! Her body is here, take it; but her soul is not yours
now: she is now before the Judge who is more merciful than
you! (Puts her on the ground and runs away.)

Kabandv (rushes to Katerina). Kdtya! Kdtya!

Mrs. Kaban6v. Enough! It is a sin even to weep for her!

Kabanov. Mamma, you have killed her! You! You!

Mrs. Kaban6v. How dare you ? Are you forgetting your-
self ? Do you know to whom you are speaking ?

Kabandv. You have killed her! You! You!

Mrs. Kabandv. I '11 talk to you at home. (Bowing low to
the people.) I thank you, good people, for your services!
(All bow.)

Kabandv. It is well with you, Kdtya! But why am I left
in this world to suffer! (Falls on his wife's body.)

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov 379

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltyk6v. (pseud. Shchedrin).
(1826-1889.)

Saltyk6v was descended from an ancient noble family. He re-
ceived his first education at home, at ten years of age entered the
Moscow Institute for Sons of Noblemen, and two years later was
chosen, on account of his excellent progress, to be sent to the Ly-
ceum at Tsdrskoe-Sel6. In that school the memory of its distin-
guished alumnus, Pushkin, was still fresh, and it was expected that
there should be a continuator of the great poet in every class. Thus
Saltyk6v wrote his first poem in 1841, but he soon abandoned poetry
for satire. After leaving the Lyceum, Saltyk6v threw himself into
the whirlpool of pleasures, even in this emulating the older genera-
tion. In 1847 appeared his first story. The following year he wrote
A Mixed Affair, which, like his previous effort, was quite weak and
insignificant, but as it happened to have made its appearance in the
critical year 1848, when the censorship was unusually severe, he was
suspected of evil purposes and was banished to the Government of
Vydtka. He there remained eight years, but served with distinction
under the Governor and rose to various posts of eminence. Upon his
return from exile he published his Provincial Sketches, in which he
gave some gloomy pictures of provincial oppression and dishonesty.
Saltyk6v created a special language for his satires, which, on account
of the endless allusions and masterly word-creations, are the despair
of the translator and have made his admirable works less known
abroad than they deserve to be. In his long literary career Saltyk6v
has adapted himself to the conditions of the time, and thus his satires
give a continuous record of the reverse of Russian life for upwards of
forty years. Among his best works are Pompadours and Pompa-
douresses, The Tashkentians, Refuge Monvepos, Diary of a Pro-
vincial at St. Petersburg, and his famous The Golovlevs, which enjoys
a reputation like G6gol's Dead Souls.

In English translation are to be found : Tchinovniks, Sketches of
Provincial Life, from the memoirs of the retired Conseiller de Cour
Stchedrin (Saltikow), translated with notes from the Russian by F.
Aston, London, 1861 ; The Recollections of Onesime Chenapan, The
Self-Sacrificing Rabbit, and The Eagle as Meccsnas, in The Humour
of Russia, by B. L. Voynich, London and New York, 1895 ; in Free
Russia were given The Fool, in vol. i., No. 5, The Deceitful Editor
and the Credulous Reader, in vol. i., No. 9, Story of how One Peasant
Saved Two Generals, in vol. ii., No. 6, and Misha and Vania> in vol.
iii., Nos. 6 and 7.

380 The Nineteenth Century

FROM ''BEYOND THE BORDER"
Having grown tired of my fruitless sojourn in the world
of concrete facts, I self-confidently attempted to fly as a
steel-grey eagle into the sphere of abstractions. In my
younger days I took such flights quite often. Together
with my other companions I liked to pamper myself with
excursions into that region where one is supposed to get
" revelations of invisible things," and, I remember, these
excursions were a source of great pleasure to me. I cannot
say I saw that region clearly defined, but, in any case, the
contemplation of it evoked in me no fear, but a decidedly
pleasurable sensation. In general, we then lived with more
vigour (of course, I have in view only myself and my con-
temporaries), though I must confess our basal fund of life
was impaired by inconsistencies that bordered on frivolities.
Two lives went side by side: one, so to say, pro domo, the
other for the fear of the Jews, that is, in the manner of a
justificatory document to the authorities.

You are sitting at home and with your whole being, so
to say, have transferred y\nrself into the sphere of the
"revelation of invisible things." Suddenly, the fateful
hour strikes, — run to your bureau! You don your trowsers
and your office uniform, and fifteen minutes later you are in
an entirely different sphere, in the sphere of the " confirma-
tion of visible things." Of course^ the questions in the two
places are quite different. In the first sphere the question
is whether the golden age is to be sought behind or before
us; in the second the question is the establishment of golden
ages by means of provincial government offices and depart-
ments of charity, on the basis of explicit statutory enactments
anent this subject. You stay there a while, scratch your
pen, and behold! again strikes the fateful hour. You run
home again, change your trowsers, put on a coat or a
smoking-jacket, and you transport yourself once more into
the sphere of the "revelation of invisible things." Thus

our youth passed

The present generation will, no doubt, regard this running
from one sphere into another as not very consistent, but in

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov 381

those days we managed to unite them, and we felt no awk-
wardness. And now, after many, many years, passing in
accidental solitude, the stream of my youth has suddenly
burst upon me. Come, thought I, I will run, as in olden
days. However, I did not get as far as running, for, though
my youthful recollections streamed upon me with vim, I had
to convince myself that my legs were not what they used to
be, and that the blood in my veins was no longer the same.
And then, the questions that these recollections brought
back — really, I do not know what to call them. Some,
who are more lenient, call them untimety, while others, who
are unquestionably evil-minded, blankly call them harm-
ful Well, you may judge for yourself.

The first question : ' ' Does history console ? ' ' Some forty
years ago — I am quite sure of it — I should in all truth have
answered: " Yes, it consoles." But what shall I say now ?
To tell the truth, I have even forgotten how to think by
principles, without prefatory admixtures. I begin with the
tenebrousness of Time, and no sooner does light begin to
glimmer than I strike river Pinega with Vilytiy, or some
statute of abatement, and there I stick fast. Precisely that
has happened now. Barely had the question peeped at me,
and barely had I proceeded to dismember it, when God
knows whence bobbed up Major-General Terrible and so
flashed his eyes at me that I was completely stunned.
" No, I had better to-morrow — " I confusedly said to my-
self, and I that very moment hastened to duck so that my
ears might not be seen.

The second question : ( ' Can one live with the people, and
depend upon them? " Forty years ago I certainly should
have answered : ' ' One not only can, but it is not possible to
live otherwise." Now No sooner do I begin to ex-
patiate and prove "from principle" that human activity
outside of the sphere of the people is objectless and sense-
less, than the hide of my whole being begins to shudder.
There stare at me those fellows of Hunting Row,1 those
colabourers of Hay Market, and, at last, a whole mass of
1 Poultry and game market.

382 The Nineteenth Century

temporising rascals, a la Napoleon III., who, too, had pro-
claimed: tout pour le peuple et par le peuple Of course,

the conclusion was that I had better to-morrow

The third question: " Is it possible to lead a life in which
you are supposed to eat mushroom pie exclusively that you
may restrain your tongue behind your teeth ? ' ' Forty years
ago I, no doubt, should have answered again: "No, it is not
possible to live that way. And now ? — Now : ' * No, I had
better to-morrow ' '

In short, I attempted to give answers to a whole stack of
questions, but alas! neither concreteness, nor abstraction, —
nothing awakened impotent thought. I struggled for quite
a while, and I came very near calling out: " Vodka! " but
fortunately that drink is not so accessible in Paris as to con-
sole one at will.

So I lay me down to sleep, having carried away from my
two-days' blues the truth that under certain conditions of
life a spree must be considered not so much from the stand-
point of a vitiated will as in the sense of an irrepressible

necessity of a grieving soul I had a disturbed, painful

dream. At first there hovered before me some incoherent
fragments, but by degrees they formed themselves into some-
thing connected, there was a whole colloquy, the heroine of
which was — a swine! However, this colloquy is so interest-
ing that I do not regard it nugatory to share it with my
readers in the form in which my memory has preserved it.

THK TRIUMPHANT SWINE, OR THE CONVERSATION OF THE
SWINE WITH TRUTH — AN INTERRUPTED SCENE

DRAMATIS PERSONA

SWINE, stall-fed beast ; his bristles have become glossy and
shining as the result of uninterrupted contact with the
stable mire.

TRUTH, a person that, by rights, is supposed to be eternally
young, but in reality is badly knocked up. By order of

Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov 383

the authorities she is covered with rags, through which
glints her full classical uniform , i. e., nakedness.
The action takes place in the stable.

Swine (screwing up his face). Is it true what they say, that
the sun is shining in the sky ?

Truth. Yes, Swine.

Swine. Really ? I have never seen any of your suns here
in the stable where I live.

Truth. That 's so, Swine, because when Nature was creat-
ing you, she kept on saying: 'T is not for you, O Swine, to
see the bright sun !

Swine. You don't say! (Authoritatively.) In my opinion,
all these suns of yours are rank heresy — eh ?

( Truth, silent and embarrassed, arranges her rags. In the
audience are heard voices : ' ' You are right, Swine ! Heresy !
Heresy!"*)

Swine (continues to grimace}. Is it so ? — I have heard that
they say in papers that liberty is the most precious posses-
sion of human society ?

Truth. Yes, Swine.

Swine. In my opinion, we are surfeited with liberty.
Here, I have been living without intermission in this stable,
and I have no worry! What more do I want ? If I take a
notion, I stick my snout in the trough, or rummage the

manure what more liberty do I want ? (Authoritatively.*)

You are all traitors, as I look at you — eh ?

( Truth again tries to conceal her nakedness. The audience
shouts : ' ' You are right, Swine ! Traitors ! Traitors ! ' '
Some of the audience demand that Truth shall be taken to the
police station. The swine grunts with self-satisfaction, seeing
himself equal to the situation.}

Swine. What 's the use, taking Truth to the station ?
They '11 only keep her there for appearances, and then
they '11 let her out again. (Lies down in the manure, and
falls into sentimentality} Oh, nowadays those police
people speak the same language as the feuilleton writers!
A few days ago I read in a paper that the cause of our weak-
ness is that our laws are only written for appearances

384 The Nineteenth Century

Truth. So you read, Swine ?

Swine. Now and then. Only I do not take it in as it is
written I understand it as I please ( To the audi-
ence.) So, as I say, my friends! We will not send her to the
police station, we '11 get at her in our own way — To day
we '11 put one little question to her, and to-morrow — two —
{Meditating.) We won't get away with her at once, — we '11

just chaw her by degrees {Panting, approaches Truth,

grabs her by her calf, and begins to bite her.) That 's the
way!

( Truth shrinks with pain ; the audience yells. Shouts are
heard : " You are a brick, Swine / You are a good one ! ")

Swine. What ? You like it ? Well, that '11 be enough
for this time! (Stops chawing.) Now, tell me, where is the
root of evil?

Truth (confused). The root of evil, Swine? The root of
evil — the root of evil — is (with decision, and unexpectedly to
herself) in you, Swine!

Swine (furious). Ah, that 's the way you talk! Now,
look out! Did n't you say that universal truth was incom-
parably superior to police- truth ?

Truth (trying to avoid a direct answer). Though under cer-
tain conditions of life, one cannot deny

Swine. Stop wagging your tail! We have heard of those
ifs and buts before! Talk straight! Is there in your opinion
a certain special truth that is superior to police-truth ?

Truth. O Swine, how treacherously mean

Swine. Very well, we '11 talk later about that. ( Treading
with heavier step.) Go ahead! Is it true you have said
that the laws must protect all alike, for, say you, otherwise
human society would change into a chaotic mass of warring
elements ? What kind of laws have you been talking about ?
What was the cause, madam, of your glibness, and at whose
door did you wish to place it — eh ?

Truth. Ah, Swine!

Swine. Swine me no swine to my snout! I know without

you that I am a swine. I am a swine, and you are Truth

(The swine's grunting sounds like irony) Go, Swine, make

Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev 385

for Truth! {Begins to chaw. To the audience.) Fine, is n't
it?

{Truth shudders with pain. The audience goes into convul-
sions. On all sides is heard : "Fine ! Give it to her, Swine !
Give it to her ! Go for her ! Chaw her ! Look at that im-
pudent one ; she dares have anything to say / ")

The colloquy was interrupted here. I could not make out
anything else, because there was raised such a hubbub in
the stable that I could only dimly catch the sounds: " Is it

true that in the university ' ' ' * Is it true that in the female

colleges " In a twinkling of the eye Truth was en-
meshed in a whole net of stupidly treacherous deceit, and
every attempt at disentangling from that net was met by the
swine's chawing and the thunder of the crowd: " Friends,
let us judge her with the people's judgment! "

I lay like one fettered, expecting any moment to be
chawed up myself. I, who had all my life been repeating
in frivolous self-confidence: " God won't permit it, the
swine won't eat me! " — suddenly yelled out at the top of
my voice: " The swine will eat me up ! He will!"

That very moment a loud rap at the door made me wake
up.

Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev. (1841-1868.)

Pisarev was the son of wealthy gentlefolk who gave him a very
careful training at home, so that at the age of four he spoke fluently
three languages, at the age of eleven entered an advanced class of the
Gymnasium, graduating with a gold medal, and at sixteen years was
by especial permission admitted to the university. While there, he
contributed some reviews for periodicals and wrote an elaborate dis-
sertation on Apollonius of Tyana. In 1862 he was arrested for having
furnished a secret printing establishment with an article on Herzen,
and was kept for four years in prison. Here he composed his es-
says for which he is known. He taught a philosophic sensualism
and denied the value of art, and with it of poetry for art's sake, — in
short, he stood on the standpoint of Bazdrov in Turge"nev's Fathers
and Sons. He thus represented the reaction of the early sixties
against the opportunism of the previous decade. In his Flowers of

VOL. II. — 25.

386 The Nineteenth Century

Harmless Humour 'he made an attack against the satirist Shchedrin,
whom he advised to abandon his literary labours for the popularisa-
tion of the sciences. He died by accidental drowning.

FLOWERS OF HARMLESS HUMOUR

Poets fare badly in our days. Their credit is rapidly
sinking. Unfeeling critics and soulless scoffers are break-
ing down the public's respect for the great mysteries of the
unconscious creative power. Formerly they used to talk of
a poet's inspiration; formerly a poet was thought to be a
favourite of the gods and an intimate of the Muses. Though
these mythological metaphors were not supposed to be in-
terpreted in a literal sense, yet under these metaphors one
continually felt something good and mysterious, something
intangible and inapproachable, something that must for ever
remain inaccessible to us, poor clodhoppers. Fellows of
our kind were permitted to learn something about it only
from the indistinct accounts of the artists who ' ' like gods
have access to the Olympian halls," where they are shown
very interesting and frequently very immodest scenes.

Now all that has changed. Brother clodhopper has
gathered an enormous force, and he undertakes to discuss
everything. He does not acknowledge any inspiration, does
not hanker for any Olympian halls, in spite of the fact that
the poet gives a detailed account how a certain artist was
once shown in these halls " a white nape's curvedness" in
''eternal ideals," and things in general which " divinity
discloses to mortals in paltry doles" (A. Maykov). Our
brother clodhopper denies all that with his innate coarseness
of feeling and boldness of expression. Those are all flowers
of fancy, he says, but you had better tell us: What mental
power does the poet possess ? Is his development broad, and
his culture thorough ?

What questions these are! Are they pertinent ? Are
they refined ? Is it permissible to summon a favourite of the
gods and to question him like a guilty high-school boy ? If it
at all has come to such unheard of questions, if faith has
been lost in divine inspiration, if the periodicals find it more

Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev

interesting to have their correspondents in Paris or London,
in Saratov or Irkutsk, rather than upon Parnassus or in the
Olympian halls, — then, of course, there is nothing left for
the peaceable poet to do but to hang his darling lyre on a
nail, and to enter the Government service or turn to the
sombre occupations of agriculture. If it keeps on in that
way, there will at last come a dramatic moment, when the
last poet will embrace the last esthetician and, sobbing, will
say to him :

" My friend, we are alone. The world has turned sour
and is decaying. The microscope and the scalpel give us
no rest. If we do not conceal ourselves or do not turn
naturalists, they will put us alive into spirits, in order to
preserve complete the last specimens of an extinct species
that had remarkable external resemblances to man. My
friend, when we die, the last gate that leads to the Olympian
dwellings will be nailed up and securely hidden from view,
not by bricks, but by a heap of all the unsold copies of my
poems and all the uncut sheets of your critical essays."

" Well," will say the esthetician, " if it is so, then all is
ended. The gate will for ever remain inaccessible ! No man
will ever climb, no animal will ever jump over my critiques
and your poesy." And, clasping each other in a tight em-
brace, as people embrace on the grave of everything that is
dear to them, our last Mohicans will start on a run to the
shop to buy themselves a microscope and chemical retorts, as
appurtenances of a masquerade that is to save them from an
untimely and involuntary descent into spirits. The history
of the regenerated specimens of the extinct species will end
by the esthetician' s and poet's marriage, a la face du soleil et
de la nature, to two girls who are medical practitioners and
who in times of yore used to completely upset their present
admirers by their incomprehensibly solid education, their
indecently firm manner of thinking, and their complete ab-
sence of feminine grace, that is, weakness, silliness, and
affectation. The children of these two happy pairs will get
to hear some dim references to estheticians and poets, but
their grandchildren will never hear that. Both species will

388 The Nineteenth Century

become entirely unknown, as are unknown to us many slugs
of the primeval world, that have left neither bones, nor
shells, nor any other traces of their mundane existence.

From many separate features that are scattered in my pro-
phetic improvisation, the reader may notice that its realisa-
tion belongs to a very distant future. In all likelihood the
great-great-grandfathers and the great-great-grandmothers
of the last esthetician and the last poet are at the present
moment not yet in the wombs of their mothers ; yet, in spite
of the remoteness of the decisive catastrophe, there are evil

omens of it even in our own time There are very

many literary parasites, but out of the murky and miserable
crowd of the intellectual proletariat rise only those who
know how to acquire a flexible and variegated form- of ex-
pression. These brilliant parasites carry form to a truly
incredible perfection. They produce in their language the
same kind of wonderful roulades that Kontski does on the
violin or Rubinstein on the piano. If this virtuosity is
acquired by habit and practice, it, naturally, behooves to
make use of it: it is a capital from which one must derive
interest. And all the simple-minded reader has to do, is to
roll his eyes and take in the wonder! One is present at the
creation of a world in miniature: everything is made out of
nothing; emptiness is made to appear as fulness, and it is
made to appear fulness so naturally that one has only to
shrug his shoulders: " Yes, he is an artist, a painter, a pro-
fessor of white magic, a Bosco, and even a Mikhdyla Vasile-
vich! Of course, the public says " Ah! " and goes into
ecstasies, and how can it help going into ecstacies, when the
miracles are produced right before its eyes!

When the parasite begins to receive interest from his
capital, he simply and definitely creates, in order to apply
his technical skill to something. He has no prompting to
tell society any ideas; he has no feeling that is persistently
seeking to come out and manifest itself ; he does not at all
wish to act consciously upon the development of society in
one direction or another; he is not a thinker, not a social
factor, and not a poet in the higher and now forgotten sense

Dmitri Ivanovich Pisarev 389

of the word. He is a master workman of articles, novels,
or verses, and, being a sensible artisan, he does not wish his
skill to be lost in vain. Why should he sit with folded
hands, having learned a trade ? Why should he not start
out on the hunt of roubles and laurel wreaths, as long as
there are good people who lavish both in fair abundance ?

His reasoning is faultless, and this reasoning leads
straightway to the complete triumph and unlimited domina-
tion of pure art. Some people write because their being
boils over with the impassioned work of mind and feelings.
It is evident that their mind and feelings, being abroad be-
cause of the creative process, are roused by impressions that
are independent of that process.

Others write in order to act upon society. The aim of
their activity is independent of the process, as we see in
Byelinski, Dobrolyubov, and the author of What is to be
Done ? l

Others again write because they have learned to write and
because they can write without the least labour, just as
a nightingale sings and a rose exhales perfume. Their
activity is causeless and aimless, that is, they have a cause
and an aim, but these can have no effect upon the direction
of the creative process. Suppose the versifier wants to have
a beaver collar sewn on to his warm overcoat. Here is a
stimulating cause for dipping his pen in the inkstand; how-
ever, he will, in all probability, not write of beaver collars,
but of the vicissitudes of fate that affected three ancient
sages,2 or of the misfortunes of a poor girl who died in the
spring by the sounds of her father's fiddle, or of some other
elevated and beautiful thing that has nothing in common
with the tempting display of the furrier next door.

He has also an aim: the versifier wishes to sell his poem
to a periodical, to get for it as much as possible, and to re-
ceive on account all they will give him. Yet Seneca, I/ucan,
and L,ucius warmly discuss the immortality of the soul, and
not where he will get most, whether in the " Contempor-

1 Chernyshe"vski, whose name was tabooed by the censors.

2 Mdykov is meant ; see p. 344.

39° The Nineteenth Century

ary " or the "Memoirs of the Fatherland." And dying
Manya, in her last moments, is interested in the spring
leafage, instead of disquieting herself with the ticklish ques-
tion : I wonder whether they will let me have fifty roubles
in advance at the " Russian Word " ?

It is clear that cause and aim do not penetrate into the
sanctuary of creativeness. The sanctuary remains unpol-
luted, and people that pine for a beaver collar and that
dream of a tempting advance payment may be recognised as
high priests of pure art. The question will, naturally, not
be changed if instead of a beaver collar I should put a crav-
ing for literary glory, and instead of an advance payment of
fifty roubles — applauses at public readings. The priest of
pure art will in either case remain true to his vocation, and
in either case he will remain a magnificent specimen of the
genus parasite.

If it is not quite clear to the readers why our lyric poets,
who represent a complete absence of ideas, may be included
in the list of parasites that despoil the ideas of others, I will
at once set them aright. Our lyric poets feed their destitu-
tion on the tiniest grains of thought and feelings that are
the common possession of all men, stupid and wise, cultured
and uncultured, honest and dishonest. Every man has some
kind of a feeling when he looks at a pretty woman, and
everybody knows that sensation and understands that it is
known to others also, and that, consequently, it is useless
and uninteresting to tell others about it. But the lyricists
live, like the humming-birds, on flower dust; they have
turned this trifling and well-known sentiment to their advant-
age and have begun to elicit an income from it, thanks to
their ability to create something out of nothing and to clothe
the intangible dust in thin-woven and variegated garments
of iambics, chorees, anapests, dactyls, and amphibrachs.

The lyric poets, being tiny birds in the great family of
parasites, prosper on what everybody knows and none but
the lyric poets can or wish to make use of. Other larger
parasites exploit in their favour not small grains of feeling
and germs of thought, but whole, big feelings and whole,

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 391

well-developed thoughts. These priests of pure art devour
remarkable theories and majestic world conceptions. There
are among these priests sparrows, and there are also ele-
phants, and, as the proverb says, the bigger the vessel, the
better the sailing, — the elephants, naturally, lay hold of the
broadest and most daring world conceptions. They discuss
with another's voice the most important and the greatest
questions of life; they perform their variations with so much
aplomb and with such overpowering thunder that the reader
is intimidated and reverentially bows his head before them.
But the temple of pure art is open alike for all its real
devotees, for all the priests who have a pure heart and are
innocent of independent mental labour. Thanks to this cir-
cumstance, the reader, though he may marvel and not be-
lieve his eyes, will see at the same altar, on the one hand,
our little lyric poet Fet, on the other, our great humorist
Shchedrm.

Count Lev Nikoldevich Tolst6y. (1828-.)

Count Tolst6y was born in the estate of Ydsnaya Polydna, in the
Government of Tula. In 1837 his family settled in Moscow, but his
father died soon after, and he returned to Ydsnaya Polydna. In 1843
he entered the university at Kazdn, and in 1848 graduated from the
Faculty of Jurisprudence at St Petersburg. He again returned to
his estate, where he remained till 1851. He then enrolled in the
army and was stationed in the Caucasus, where he began his literary
career with his sketches, Childhood, The Incursion, Boyhood, The
Cossacks. He took part in the Crimean War, and during the cam-
paign wrote his stories about Sebastopol. After the war Tolst6y
settled in St. Petersburg, where he published a series of shorter
stories. In these his disenchantment with existing conditions is
clearly perceptible. In 1862 he married the daughter of Doctor Behrs,
and went back to the estate of Ydsnaya Polydna. Here he devoted
himself to the education of the peasants and edited an educational
periodical, Ydsnaya Polydna, in which he evolved his radical views.
Soon after he assumed a negative attitude to all progress, and has
remained in it ever since. From 1865 to 1869 appeared his great novel
War and Peace. Then he again returned to his pedagogical activity,
and composed a large number of short stories for the peasants. In
1875 began to appear his other great novel, Anna Karenin. At the
same time he wrote his Confession, and devoted himself to the com-

392 The Nineteenth Century

position of theological tracts. His newly formulated theory of a return
to common labour and simplicity of life has found many followers who
emulate the life of their master under the name of Tolstoyists.

The first novel of Tolst6y's to be translated was The Cossacks, by
Eugene Schuyler, in 1878. Since then such a large number of trans-
lations of most of his works have appeared that it is not advisable to
give them here ; they may easily be found in late publishers' annuals.
The following names figure as translators of Tolst<5y: A. Hulme
Beaman, M. Cruger, E. J. Dillon, A. Delano, N. H. Dole, H. Suther-
land Edwards, Constance Garnett, G. B. Halsted, Isabel Hapgood, Ch.
Johnston, A. Loranger, Y. A. Ludwig, Louise Maude, W. Aylmer
Maude, Count Norraikow, C. Dopoff, S. Rapoport and J. Kenworthy,
V. Tchertkoff, W. M. Thompson, B. R. Tucker.

FROM "ANNA KARENIN"

" Do you know, I have been thinking of you," said Serg-
yey Ivanovich. " From what that doctor has told me, there
are some awful things going on in your county; the doctor
is quite a clever fellow. I have been telling you and I repeat
it now: it is wrong for you not to go to the meetings and
altogether to keep away from all agrarian interests. If de-
cent people are going to withdraw from them, then, of course,
everything will go God knows how. We are paying out
money; it all goes on salaries, and we have no schools, no
medical assistants, no midwives, no apothecary shops,
nothing."

"I have tried," L,evin answered softly and unwillingly,
11 but I can't! What 's to be done ? "

" What is it that you can't! I confess, I do not under-
stand you. Indifference and inability I do not admit; is it,
then, simply indolence ? ' '

' * Neither the one, nor the other, nor the third. I have
tried, and I see that I can't do anything," said Levin.

He did not pay much attention to what his brother was
saying. As he looked beyond the river at the field, he dis-
tinguished something black, but he could not make out
whether it was a horse or a clerk on horseback.

" Why can't you do anything? You have made an at-

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 393

tempt, and in your opinion you did not succeed, so you have
given it up. Have n't you any ambition ? "

"Ambition," said Levin, touched to the quick by his
brother's words, " is incomprehensible to me. If they had
told me in the university that others understand integral cal-
culus, and that I do not, there would be a case for ambition.
But here one must be convinced first of all that one must
have a certain ability for that, and above all, that these
affairs are really important."

" Well, is n't that important ? " said Sergyey Ivanovich,
himself touched to the quick because his brother regarded as
unimportant that which interested him, and because, evid-
ently, he was not listening.

" It does not seem important to me, and does not interest
me, so what are you going to do about that ? ' ' answered
I/evin, having in the meantime made out that what he saw
was really the clerk and that the clerk had, no doubt, told
the peasants to stop ploughing. They were turning over
the ploughs. "Is it possible, they have done the plough-
ing ? " he thought.

" But listen," said his elder brother, with a frown on his
beautiful, intelligent face, " there are limits to everything.
It 's all very nice to be an odd fellow, and a sincere man,
and not to like deception, — I understand all that; but what
you are saying has either no sense, or a very bad sense.
How is it you find it unimportant that the people whom you
profess to love ' '

" I never professed," thought Konstantin Levin.

"Are dying without receiving any aid ? Coarse midwives
are killing the children, and the people are steeped in ignor-
ance and remain in the power of every scribe, whereas you
have the means at hand to correct all that, and you do no-
thing, because in your opinion it is not important."

Sergyey Ivanovich had placed a dilemma before him:
' ' Either you are so undeveloped that you cannot see all that
you are able to do, or you do not wish to sacrifice your quiet
and your vainglory, or what not, in order to do it."

Konstantin Levin felt that there was nothing left for him

394 The Nineteenth Century

to do but submit or confess an absence of love for the com-
mon weal. And this offended and grieved him.

" Both," he spoke with decision; " I can't see how one
can "

" What? You can't, by making proper use of money,
give them medical help ? "

1 ' As far as I can see, it is impossible I see no possi-
bility of furnishing medical aid in all the places of the four
thousand square versts of our county, with our freshets,
blizzards, and working season. Besides, I have no faith in
medicine. ' '

"Come now, that is not just I can give you a thou-
sand examples Well, and schools ? ' '

" What are the schools for ? "

" You don't mean that! Can there be any doubt of the
use of education ? If it is good for you, it is also good for
everybody else."

Konstantin L,evin felt himself morally pushed to the wall,
and so he became excited and involuntarily expressed the
main cause of his indifference to the common good.

" May be all that is good. But why should I bother
about establishing medical centres which I am not going to
use, or schools to which I am not going to send my children,
to which even the peasants do not want to send theirs, and
I am not yet firmly convinced that they should ? ' ' said he.

This unexpected view of the affair for a moment startled
Sergyey Ivdnovich ; but he at once thought out a new plan
of attack. He kept silent, pulled out one fishing-rod, threw
it in at another place, and, smiling, turned to his brother.

* ' You will pardon me : in the first place, a medical centre
is much needed. There, we had to send for the county
doctor to attend to Agafya Mikhaylovna."

" Well, I think her hand will always stay crooked."

" That is an open question Then, a literate peasant

will make a more useful labourer."

" I don't know, you may ask anybody you please," an-
swered Konstantm Levin emphatically,—" literate peasants
are much worse as labourers. You can't fix the roads with

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 395

them; and if they have to build a bridge, they '11 swipe the
material."

' * However, ' ' frowningly said Sergyey Ivanovich, who did
not like contradictions, especially such as continually jumped
from one subject to another and without connection adduced
new proofs, so that it was impossible to tell what to answer
first, " however, that is not the question. Let me ask you,
do you acknowledge education to be a benefit to the people ? ' '

" I do," said Levin incautiously, and immediately was
conscious that he did not say what was in his mind. He
felt that since he did acknowledge it, the proof would be
forthcoming that he was talking senseless bosh. He did
not know how that would be argued, but he was sure that
the logical deduction was forthcoming, and he waited for
that proof.

The argument was much simpler than Konstantin Levin
had expected it.

" If you acknowledge it to be beneficial," said Sergyey
Ivanovich, " you, as an honest man, can't help loving this
thing and sympathising with it, and consequently you can't
help wishing to work for it."

11 But I have not yet acknowledged this to be good," said
Konstantin Levfn, blushing.

* * What ? You have just told me ' '

" That is, I do not acknowledge it to be good or possible."

" You can't know that, not having made an effort."

"Well, granted," said Levin, though he did not at all
grant it, " granted, it is so; I still can't see, why I should
bother about it."

" What do you mean ? "

" Well, since we have gotten so far in our discussion, ex-
plain it to me from the philosophical point of view," said
Levin.

" I don't understand what need there is here of philo-
sophy," said Sergyey Ivanovich, in a tone which sounded to
Levin as if he did not acknowledge his brother's right to
discuss philosophy. This irritated Levin.

1 * It is this," he said excitedly, " I think that the prime

The Nineteenth Century

mover of all our actions is, after all, our personal happiness.
I, as a nobleman, see at present nothing in the agrarian in-
stitutions by which my interests are advanced. The roads
are no better, and they can't be better; my horses take me
just as easily over bad roads. I need no doctors and no
medical centres. I don't want a justice of the peace, — I
have never had recourse to him, and I never will. I not
only need no schools, but I find them injurious, as I have
told you. For me the agrarian institutions mean only an
obligation to pay eighteen kopeks per desyatina, to travel to
town, in order to pass the nights with bedbugs, and to listen
to all kinds of nonsense and commonplaces, — but my per-
sonal interest in no way incites me."

11 Wait a moment, " Sergyey Ivanovich interrupted him,
with a smile, "our personal interest did not incite us to work
for the liberation of the peasants, yet we worked."

"No!" Konstantm interrupted him, getting ever more
excited. "The liberation of the peasants was an entirely
different matter. There was a personal interest connected
with it. We wanted to get rid of the yoke which was op-
pressing us, all the good people. But to be an alderman, to
discuss how many cleaners of privies are needed, and how
the pipes are to be laid in the town I am not living in, — to
be a juryman and sit in judgment over a peasant who has
stolen a ham, and for six hours to listen to all kinds of non-
sense that is threshed out by the defence and by the pro-
curators, and the presiding judge asking my old peasant,
Aleshka the fool: * Do you, Mr. Defendant, plead guilty to
misappropriating the ham, eh ? ' "

Konstantin Levin was getting away from the argument,
and began to act the presiding judge and Aleshka the fool;
it seemed to him that it all was pertinent to the discussion.

But Sergyey Ivanovich shrugged his shoulders.

" Well, what is it you are up to ? "

" I want to say that I will always, with all my might, de-
fend the rights that touch me — my interest ; that, when I
was a student and the secret police made a raid on us and
read our letters, I was ready with all my might to defend

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 397

these rights, to defend my rights of culture and of liberty.
I can understand military duties that touch the fate of my
children, my brothers, and myself; I am ready to discuss
what touches me ; but I do not understand, and do not want
to understand, why I should consider what to do with forty
thousand roubles of the county money, or why I should sit
in judgment over Aleshka the fool."

Konstantin Levin spoke as if the dam of his words had
broken loose. Sergyey Ivanovich smiled.

"Suppose you will have a case at law to-morrow: well,
would you prefer to be judged in the old criminal court ? "

" I will not have a case in court. I will not cut anybody's
throat, and I have no need to do so. By the way! " he con-
tinued, again jumping over to an entirely irrelevant matter,
' ' all our county institutions and such things are very much
like the birch saplings that we stick up, as on Whitsun Mon-
day, in order to make them look like a forest that has grown
up of its own accord in Europe ; but I have not the heart to
water these birches, nor have I any faith in them."

Sergyey Ivdnovich only shrugged his shoulders, express-
ing by this motion that he was at a loss to account for these
birches in their discussion, though he immediately saw what
his brother had intended to say by them.

" Really, that is not a way of discussing the matter," he
remarked.

But Konstantin Levin was anxious to put himself right
in regard to his defect, of which he was conscious, that is,
his indifference to the common good, and he continued:

"I think," said Konstantin, "that no activity can be
permanent if it is not based on personal interest. This is a
universal truth, a philosophic truth," said he, emphatically
repeating the word "philosophic," as if to show that he,
too, had a right, like anybody else, to talk of philosophy.

Sergyey Ivanovich smiled again. " He has a philosophy
of his own to suit his inclinations," thought he.

" Well, you had better leave philosophy alone," said he.
1 ' The main problem of philosophy has been in all ages to
discover the necessary connection that exists between per-

398 The Nineteenth Century

sonal and common interests. But that is not to the point;
it behooves me to correct your comparison. The birch sap-
lings were not stuck up, but some were set out, and some
were planted, and one has to tend them carefully. Only
those nations have a future, only those nations may be
called historical, that have discernment in what is impor-
tant and significant in their institutions, and that value
them."

Sergyey Ivanovich transferred the question into the field
of philosophical history, which was inaccessible to Kon-
stantfn L,evih, and showed him the whole injustice of his
view.

l< But as to your having no love for it, — you must pardon
me, — it is a case of our Russian indolence and mannerism,
and I am convinced that it is only a temporary aberration
which will pass."

Konstantin was silent. He felt that he had been demol-
ished all around, but he felt at the same time that his brother
did not understand what he had intended to convey. But
he did not know why he was not understood: because he did
not express clearly his thoughts, or because his brother did
not wish to understand him, or because he could not. How-
ever, he did not pursue this thought any longer; he did not
answer his brother, and fell to musing about something
different, some personal matter of his.

Sergyey Ivanovich fastened his last fishing-rod, untied
the horse, and they drove away.

The waggon-load was full. Ivan j umped down and led the
gentle, well-fed horse by the bridle. The woman threw her
rake on the waggon, and, swinging her arms, went with a
rapid step to the other women who were walking together.
When Ivan drove into the road, he joined a whole procession
of other waggons. The women were walking behind the
waggons, with their rakes over their shoulders, adorned with
bright flowers and prating away with their sonorous, merry
voices. A coarse, low, woman's voice started a song and
sang it out to the refrain; then half a hundred of low and

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 399

high healthy voices caught the refrain and sang the song
again from the beginning.

The singing women were approaching Levin, and it ap-
peared to him as though a cloud, discharging peals of joy,
were passing over him. The cloud came nearer, and over-
whelmed him, and the stack on which he was lying, and all
the other stacks, and the waggons, and the whole meadow
with the distant field, — all moved and rocked with the
rhythmical measure of this wild, hilarious song, with its ex-
clamations, its whistling and shouting. Levin envied them
their healthy merriment, and he wished to take part in the
expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and
he was obliged to lie, and look and listen. When the people
disappeared with their song from the eye and the ear, a
heavy feeling of melancholy, on account of his loneliness,
his physical inactivity, his hostility to this world, took pos-
session of Levin.

Some of the very peasants who had more than anybody
else been disputing with him on account of the hay, those
whom he had offended, or those who had wished to cheat
him, — those very peasants merrily bowed to him and evid-
ently had no evil thought of him, nor could they have any ;
they had not only no repentance but even no recollection of
their having wished to cheat him. Everything was drowned
in the sea of the merry mass work. God has given the day,
God has given the strength to work. And the day and the
strength are devoted to work, and in it is its own reward.
For whom is this work ? What will be the fruits of this
work ? These are secondary, unimportant considerations.

Levin often admired this life, often experienced the feeling
of envy towards the people that lived this life, but it was to-
day for the first time, especially under the influence of what
he had seen of the relations of Ivan Parmenov to his young
wife, that Levin was possessed of the idea that it depended
upon him to change the burdensome, empty, artificial, and
personal life which he was living for this busy, pure, social,
charming life.

The old man who had been sitting by his side had long

400 The Nineteenth Century

ago gone home; the people had all disappeared. Those who
lived near by had gone home, and those that were from a
distance were preparing their supper and their camp in the
meadow. Unnoticed by the people, Levin remained lying
on the stack, in order to see, listen, and think. Those who
had stayed for the night in the field hardly closed their eyes
in the short summer night. At first one could hear a uni-
versal merry conversation and laughter during the supper,
and then again songs and laughter.

The whole long work-day had left no other trace in them
but merriment. Before the morning dawn everything
grew quiet. One could hear only the nocturnal sounds of
the uu silenced frogs in the swamp, and of the horses that
neighed in the meadow in the mist that rose before morning.
Awakening from his re very, Levin climbed down from the
stack and, looking at the stars, he knew that night had
passed.

1 ' Well, what am I going to do ? How am I going to do
it? " said he to himself, trying to formulate for himself all
that he had thought out and that he had felt in that short
night. All that he had thought and felt was divided into
three different mental processes. One was the renunciation
of his old life, of his useless education. This renunciation
caused him pleasure, and it was easy and simple for him.
Other thoughts and ideas touched upon the life which he now
wanted to live. He clearly felt the simplicity, purity, and
legality of this life, and he was convinced that he would find
in it that satisfaction, that rest and dignity, the absence of
which had caused him such painful sensations. But the
third series of thoughts circled about the question how to
make that transition from the old life to the new. But here
he could see nothing clearly. "To have a wife. Have
work and the necessity for work. Should I leave Pokrov-
skoe ? Should I buy land ? Join society ? Marry a peasant
woman ? How am I to do it ? " he asked himself again and
found no answer. " However, I have not slept the whole
night, and I have no clear ideas," said he to himself. " I
will think it out later. One thing is certain, this night has

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 401

decided iny fate. All my former ideas of family life are
bosh," said he to himself. "This is much simpler and

better ' '

" How beautiful! " thought he, as he looked at a strange,
mother-of-pearl shell of white cirrus clouds that stopped over
iiis head in the middle of the sky. " How superb every-
thing is in this superb night! When has this shell been
formed ? It is only a moment ago I was looking at the sky,
and there was nothing there but two white streaks. Yes,
just so imperceptibly have my views of life been changed! "

FROM "WAR AND PEACE"
NAPOI/EXDN'S ENTRY INTO MOSCOW

On the night of the thirteenth of September was given
Kutuzov's order for the Russian army to retreat beyond the
Moskva on the Ryazan road.

The first divisions started in the night. As long as it was
dark, they were in no hurry and moved slowly and in good
order. But when the moving army reached the Dorogomilov
bridge at daybreak, they could see ahead of them the endless
masses of the army, pressing and hurrying over the bridge,
and emerging on the other side, and stopping up the streets
and byways, and behind them followed similar endless
masses. An unnecessary haste and alarm took possession
of the army. They all pushed forward to the bridge, over
the bridge, to the fords, and into the boats. Kutuzov had
himself taken by back streets beyond the Moskva.

By ten o'clock on the morning of September i4th there
were left at large in the Dorogomilov suburb only the bat-
talions of the rear-guard. The army was already beyond
the Moskva and out of sight of Moscow,

At just that time, at ten o'clock on the morning of Sep-
tember 1 4th, Napoleon stood among his soldiers on the Pok-
lonnaya Hill, and surveyed the spectacle before him.
Beginning with September yth and up to September i4th,
from the battle at Borodino up to the enemy's entry into
Moscow, during all the days of that alarming and memorable

VOL. II.— 26.

402 The Nineteenth Century

week, there was that unusual autumn weather, which always
puzzles people, when the low sun is warmer than in spring,
when everything gleams in the pure, rarified air, so as to
hurt the eyes, when the breast grows stronger and fresher
as it inhales the fragrant autumn air, when even the nights
are warm, and when in these dark and warm nights golden
stars shower down from the heavens, causing continual fear
and joy.

It was just such weather on September i4th, at ten o'clock
in the morning. The morning shone with a magic glow.
Moscow spread far and wide from the Poklonnaya Hill, with
its river, its gardens and churches, and seemed to be living
its own life, its cupolas sparkling like stars in the sunbeams.

At the sight of the strange city with its unfamiliar forms
of unusual architecture, Napoleon experienced that some-
what envious and restless curiosity which people generally
experience at the sight of forms of a strange life that knows
nothing of them. Evidently the city was living with all the
manifestations of its life. By those indefinable signs, by
which a living body is unfailingly distinguished at a great
distance from a dead one, Napoleon saw from the Poklonnaya
Hill the palpitation of life in the city, and, as it were, felt
the breath of that great and beautiful body. Looking at
Moscow, every Russian feels that she is a mother; every
stranger, who looks at her and does not know her maternal
meaning, must perceive the feminine character of this city,
and Napoleon felt it too.

" There it is, at last, that famous Asiatic city with its in-
numerable churches, — that holy Moscow! I ought to have
seen it long ago! " said Napoleon and, dismounting his horse,
ordered to unfold before him the map of that Moscow and
called up the translator, Lelorme d' Ideville.

' ' A city that is taken by the enemy is like a girl who has
lost her innocence, ' ' thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov
in Smolensk). And from this point of view he surveyed the
Eastern beauty that lay before him and that he had not yet
seen. It appeared strange to him that at last his old wish,
which had seemed to him to be impossible, was fulfilled. In

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 403

the clear morning light he looked, now at the city, now at
the map, studying the details of the city, and the confidence
of possessing it agitated and frightened him.

' ' But could it have been otherwise ? ' ' thought he.
1 ' There is the capital : it lies at my feet, expecting its fate.
Where is Alexander now, and what is he thinking about ?
Strange, beautiful, majestic city! And this is a strange and
majestic moment! In what light do I appear to them?"
thought he of his army. " Here is the reward for all these
men of little faith," thought he, as he looked at those who
surrounded him and at the battalions that were defiled be-
fore him. ' ' One word of mine, one motion of my hand, and
this ancient city of the Tsars is in ruins. But my mercy is
ever ready to be shown to the conquered. I must be mag-
nanimous and truly great. But no, it is not true that I am
in Moscow," it suddenly occurred to him. " Still, there it
lies at my feet, playing and trembling with its golden cupolas
and crosses in the rays of the sun. But I will spare it. On
the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will

write great words of justice and mercy Alexander will

feel that more painfully than anything else, I know him."
It seemed to Napoleon that the chief meaning of what was
happening consisted in his personal contest with Alexander.
* ' From the summit of the Kremlin — yes, that is the Krem-
lin, yes — will I give them laws of justice, will I show them
the true meaning of civilisation: I will cause generations of
boyars to mention with love the name of their conqueror. I
will tell the deputation that I did not wish and do not now
wish war; that I have made war only on the false politics of
their Court, that I love and respect Alexander, and that I
will accept in Moscow the conditions of peace, such as is
worthy of me and of my nations. I will not make use of the
fortune of war in order to lower their respected Tsar.
* Boyars,' will I say to them, ' I want no war, I want the

peace and well-being of all my subjects ' Indeed, I

know their presence will inspire me, and I shall speak as I
always do, — clearly, majestically, and grandly. But is it
really true that I am in Moscow ? Yes, there it is! "

404 The Nineteenth Century

* * Bring the boyars to me, "he said to his suite. A general
at once galloped away with a brilliant suite to fetch the
boyars.

Two hours passed. Napoleon had his breakfast, and
again stood in the same place upon Poklonnaya Hill, waiting
for the deputation. His speech to the boyars was already
clearly formed in his imagination. That speech was full of
dignity and grandeur, as Napoleon understood them.

That mood of magnanimity which Napoleon intended to
exercise in Moscow carried him away. In his imagination
he appointed days of assembly in the palace of the Tsars,
where the Russian dignitaries were to meet the dignitaries
of the French Emperor. He mentally appointed a governor
who would be able to gain the love of the populace. Having
heard that there were many charitable institutions in Mos-
cow, he decided in his imagination to shower his favours on
all these establishments. He thought that, as it was neces-
sary in Africa to sit in the mosque in a burnous, so one
must in Moscow be as charitable as the Tsars. And in
order to touch most deeply the hearts of the Russians, he,
like every Frenchman, who cannot imagine an}rthing touch-
ing without the memory of his dear, his tender, his poor
mother, decided to have written in large letters over these
institutions: " Establishment dedicated to my dear mother/'
No, simply: "House of my mother,'* he concluded with him-
self. * * But am I really in Moscow ? Yes, there it is, before
me; but why is the deputation so late in making its appear-
ance ? ' ' thought he.

In the meanwhile an agitated consultation took place be-
tween the Imperial generals and marshals in the back of his
suite. Those who had been sent out to fetch the deputation
returned with the news that Moscow was deserted, that
everybody had left the city. The faces of the consulting
men were pale and agitated. Not the fact that Moscow had
been abandoned by its inhabitants, however important that
incident may have appeared, frightened them, but how they
were to announce it to the Emperor, and how to avoid
placing his Majesty into that terrible position which the

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 405

French call ridiculous, when they would inform him that he
had in vain been waiting so long for the boyars, that there
were left crowds of drunken men, but no one else. Some
said that it was by all means necessary to get together some
kind of a deputation; other rejected that opinion and insisted
that it behooved them carefully and cleverly to prepare the
Emperor, and to tell him the truth.

' ' But we must tell him by all means, ' ' said the gentlemen
of the suite. ' ' But, gentlemen — ' ' The situation was the
more difficult since the Emperor, in considering his plans of
magnanimity, was patiently walking up and down, in front
of the map, now and then shielding his eyes, in order to look
down the road to Moscow, and smiling happily and proudly.
" But it is awkward — impossible! " said the gentlemen of
the suite, shrugging their shoulders, and not venturing to
pronounce the suppressed terrible word, le ridicule.

In the meanwhile the Emperor, tiring of his vain expecta-
tion and feeling with his histrionic sentiment that the ma-
jestic moment was lasting too long and, consequently, was
beginning to lose its majesticalness, gave a sign with his
hand. A single shot of the signalling cannon was heard,
and the troops that were besieging Moscow from various
sides moved upon the city, through the Tver, Kaluga, and
Dorogomilov toll-gates. The troops moved faster and faster,
outrunning each other, in a rapid march and a gallop, dis-
appearing in the clouds of dust which they raised, and filling
the air with their deafening voices. Carried away by the
movement of the troops, Napoleon rode with the army to the
Dorogomilov toll-gate, but there he stopped again and, dis-
mounting his horse, walked up and down by the Kammer-
Kolleg rampart, awaiting the deputation

All this time Moscow was deserted. There were still some
people in it, there was still left one fiftieth part of all its
former inhabitants, but it was deserted. It was as deserted
as is a queenless beehive in its last moments.

In the queenless hive there is no life, but at a superficial
glance it appears as full of life as others. The bees swarm
in the warm rays of an afternoon sun just as merrily about

406 The Nineteenth Century

the queenless hive, as around the other live hives; from a
distance it is just as fragrant with honey, and bees fly in and
out of it as before. But one has only to look more closely
at it, to discover that there is no life left within. The bees
do not fly here as in the live hives; not the same odour and
not the same sound strike the bee-keeper. To the bee-
keeper's tap on the wall of the great beehive there is no
longer the former immediate, unison answer and humming
of tens of thousands of bees that threateningly lower their
backs and by the swift motion of their wings produce that
aerial life sound, but some discordant buzzing is heard in
various places of the empty beehive. From the entrance
does not proceed, as formerly, a fragrant alcoholic odour of
honey and pollen, nor does it exhale a warm breath of ful-
ness, but with the odour of honey is mingled an odour of
emptiness and decay.

At the entrance are no longer found the watch-bees, ready
to defend the hive to the last extremity, with their backs
raised up and trumpeting the alarm. There is no longer
that even and soft sound, that palpitation of work, resem-
bling the sound of boiling, but one hears the incoherent,
discordant noise of disorder. Black, slender, honey-covered
plunderer-bees fly timidly and stealthily out of one hive into
another; they do not sting, but avoid danger. Formerly
bees flew in with burdens and out again without anything;
now they fly off laden with booty.

The bee-keeper opens the lower part of the hive and looks
at its bottom. Instead of the black rows of well-fed bees
that, pacified by their work, hung down to the very bottom,
holding each other by the legs, and with a continuous mur-
mur of labour drawing out the wax, now sleepy, dried-up
bees wander about distractedly over the bottom and over
the walls of the hive. Instead of the floor being pasted even
with glue, and swept clean by the fanning wings, it is cov-
ered with bits of wax, with excrements of the bees, and
with half-dead bees that barely move their feet, and with
entirely dead bees that have not been removed.

The bee-keeper opens the upper part of the hive, and in-

Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy 407

spects the top. Instead of serried ranks of bees that have
filled up all the interstices in the honeycomb and that are
warming their young brood, he sees only the artistic, com-
plicated work of the comb, but no longer in its previous
virgin purity. Everything is neglected and obstructed:
the black plunderer-bees race rapidly and stealthily over the
structure; while his own bees, dried up, wizened, and flaccid
as if from age, loiter slowly, without disturbing anyone,
wishing nothing, and having lost the consciousness of life.
Drones, wasps, humble-bees, and moths in their flight aim-
lessly beat against the walls of the hive. Here and there,
between the wax with the dead brood and the honey, is at
times heard from various sides an angry buzzing: two bees,
from old habit, are somewhere cleaning a nest of the hive,
and carefully, above their strength, dragging away a bee or
humble-bee, not knowing themselves why they are doing it.
In another corner, two old bees are quarrelling, or cleaning,
or feeding each other, without thinking whether they are
doing it out of friendship or enmity. In a third place a
crowd of bees press against each other, and, attacking some
victim, beat and choke it. And the weakened or killed bee
slowly, softly, like down, falls from above upon the heap of
corpses.

The bee-keeper unscrews the two middle combs, in order
to see the nest. In place of the thick, black rows of thou-
sands of bees, sitting back to back, and guarding the highest
secrets of birth, he sees hundreds of drowsy, barely living
skeletons of bees. They have died, nearly all of them, be-
fore they knew it, sitting on the sanctum which they have
guarded, and which is no more. They exhale an odour of
decay and death. Only a few of them are stirring: they
rise, lazily fly up and alight on the hand of the enemy, whom
they sting, not being able to die, while the other, the dead
bees fall down like scales of fishes. The bee-keeper closes
the hive and marks it with a piece of chalk, and in proper
time breaks it open and burns it out.

Just so empty was Moscow when Napoleon, tired, rest-
less, and frowning, walked up and down the Kammer-

408 The Nineteenth Century

Kolleg rampart, waiting for the external, but, according to
his ideas, necessary preservation of proprieties, — the deputa-
tion.

Some people were still moving about senselessly in various
corners of Moscow, preserving the old habits, but not under-
standing what they were doing.

When, with proper caution, it was announced to Napoleon
that Moscow was deserted, he angrily looked at him who
reported it and, turning away, continued to walk in silence.

" Bring the carriage," said he. He seated himself in the
carriage with an adjutant of the day, and drove into the
suburb.

" Moscow is deserted. What an incredible event! " said
he to himself.

He did not drive into the city, but stopped at an inn in
the Dorogomilov suburb.

The finale of the theatrical performance was not a success!

Glyeb Ivanovich Usp6nski. (1840-1902.)

Uspe*nski was born in the city of Tula, where his father was a
government official. He attended the Gymnasia at Tula and
Chernigov, devoting much of his time to the reading of the Russian
classics. He then studied at the universities of St. Petersburg and
Moscow, leaving them in 1863 without graduating. His literary
career began in 1866 with a series of sketches under the general title
of Customs of Perdition Street, in which he described the proletariat
that eke out their existence in small provincial towns, struggling
with hunger and cold, and drowning in liquor the cheerless monotony
of their lives. He next gave, in Observations of a Lazy Fellow and
other stories, a series of types from the proletariat of intelligence in
the same provincial towns. In 1871 he went abroad, and wrote his
Letters from Servia. Upon his return he determined to turn his at-
tention to the " source," that is, to the peasant. He settled for that
purpose in the country, in the Government of Samdra, but his ex-
perience was disappointing: he saw the peasant in his crude and
savage nakedness. His Drudgery ', which is the result of his study
of peasant morality, was a revelation to Russia. Heretofore the
peasant had been either idealised or detracted, according to the
literary camp to which the writer belonged, but now he was for
the first time painted from nature, without reserve or bias. His great-
est production is The Power of the Land, based on another study in

Glyeb Ivanovich Uspenski 409

the Government of Novgorod, in which he comes to the conclusion
that the peasant can be saved only when he is returned to his land.

In English translation : The Steam Chicken and A Trifling Defect
in the Mechanism, in The Humour of Russia, by B. L. Voynich,
London and New York, 1895.

FROM "THE POWER OF THE LAND"

PETROV

Ivan Petrov belongs to that useless, incomprehensible,
disgraceful class of village people (certainly disgraceful to
such a country as Russia) that has grown up in the last
twenty years and that one can't help calling by any other
name than ' * village proletariat. ' ' This new-born proletariat
could absolutely have been avoided, if millions of measures
that are directed for the good of the masses paid at least as
much attention to the people's conception of the world as
they do to their taxable qualities.

A peasant is frequently led to turn his back on his land
and to prefer the tavern to his house by some such incon-
sistency in the peasant ' ' rights ' ' by which he may one day
be a foreman of a jury or a judge who, by pronouncing the
life-giving words ( ' not guilty ! ' ' magnanimously saves some
unfortunate man, and the next day after this manifestation
of his great ' * right ' ' may be beaten black and blue by the
village official because while intoxicated he had insulted his
elder with the words: " O you stub-nosed bunny!" One
would have to discard all morality, all spiritual life, all
ability to live according to one's own ideas, if one wanted to
move silently and without murmuring between these two
poles of the peasant " rights." But this example is only a
drop in the sea of that radical disorder that undermines the
most radical foundations of the popular world conception and
that evolves a man * ' without any prospects, " * ' without a to-
morrow, ' ' and tries to make a labourer and slave of a man
who, by the very essence of his nature, cannot exist other-
wise than with the consciousness that he is a " master."

Look at this Ivdn Petr6v, nicknamed Bosykh: he is

410 The Nineteenth Century

a man of great physical power, and an agile and skilful
workman; his wife is strong, clever, and skilful, and was
once a beauty; he can have all the land he wants. In
addition to being a husbandman, he is also a good village
joiner and a shoemaker; and even as a common day la-
bourer— chopping wood, or pressing hay — he could, by re-
ceiving seventy kopeks a day and his board, live without
any care. Instead, he has given up his farm, he beats his
wife, and she is continually weeping and complaining against
him; his three children loiter for days at a time in dirty
rags in the streets and without being cared for, and nobody
knows whether they are being fed. Though his hut is one
of a row of new peasant huts where one may see print cur-
tains, Vienna furniture, clocks under glass globes, etc., it is
the acme of disorder: it is nearly all in ruins; instead of
window panes there are only rags ; and yet one may see by
the structure of the cabin and outhouses that it was once a
1 < rich ' ' house, and that the barns extended some two hund-
red feet in length ; the posts are all of oak, nearly six feet
in circumference

And the " master" himself? Ask about him the village
people of standing, and they will all give bad reports of him :
he has sold the same hay to three different parties, and the
money he has spent in drinks; he has taken on credit,
" against the calf," in three different shops, but he has not
paid anywhere, while he has sold the calf to somebody else
and, as usual, has spent the money in liquor. He has been
several times flogged in the village office for using abusive
language to the authorities, for unpaid taxes, and for beating
his wife, whom, upon returning from his punishment, he
beat again mercilessly in the field.

" Don't give him any money, for the I,ord's sake, don't
advance him any! " is the advice a wary villager gives you.

" Don't trust him a hair's breadth! " says another villager
who has been cheated by Ivan.

And yet, let Ivan * * come to " for a week or two, what a
splendid, what a good and clever, man he is! How much
humour there is in him, how much observation, tenderness,

Glyeb Ivanovich Uspenski 411

magnanimity, self-detraction, and how much youthful fresh-
ness of soul! What is it then that sends him in an intox-
icated state into the wet and dirty gutter, without boots,
without garments, his swollen face downward, and his broad
shoulders beaten by the rains and the wind ? The whole
village remembers his family, and all say that the Bosykhs
were at one time among the first farmers, that Ivan used to
live peaceably with his wife, that they had been * ' first-
class " workers; all are convinced that let him only awaken
and he will be priceless, that he has ' * golden hands ' ' ; and
they wonder why he has turned his back to everything, why
he cheats, causes disturbances, and like a tramp does an
occasional day's work only to spend his wages in the
tavern.

Now, Ivan's intoxication has changed into a disease.
The people characterise this disease that oppresses not only
Ivan, but whole masses of the village proletariat like him, by
the name of " weakness." Physically Ivan is, like hund-
reds of similar "weak" peasants, not only healthy and
strong, but even powerful, consequently his weakness did
not spring from physical but some other causes. I have
had frequent conversations with Ivan in regard to these
" weaknesses " ; for a long time they led to no satisfactory
results, and often they were only confusing, especially to the
writer of these lines, that is, to a man who has been in the
habit of explaining the wretched state of the masses almost
exclusively as springing from material want, misery, taxes,
and so forth. I shall here relate one of these conversations
as an example.

" Do tell me, Ivan, why are you drinking so much ? " I
ask Ivdn in one of those clear moments when he " comes
to," repents his dreadful actions, and ponders over his bitter
fate.

Ivdn draws a deep sigh and speaks with contrition, almost
in a whisper:

" I have humoured myself too much I don't know

what to think We had better not speak of it!

The Nineteenth Century

When I think it over, I wish I were dead, I swear I wish I
were!"

11 But why? Do tell me!"

"Why? Well, it 's all — on account of — freedom!
That 's why! On account of too much freedom! "

As this answer perplexes me, and I am absolutely unable
to see how ' ' freedom ' ' should ruin a man, Ivdn tries to dis-
pel my perplexity, and he gives me a more detailed expla-
nation :

" On account of a free life, that 's what it is! "

" But what does that mean ? " I ask him, still perplexed.

" It means this: when I was living at the railroad station,
I received thirty-five roubles a month, and I had about ten
men under my charge, and I had an additional income of a
rouble in silver for every waggon, — now figure out how many
waggons we sent out in a winter ? Well, it was there that
I humoured myself ' '

The word * ' humour ' ' does not at all fit a strapping, forty
years old, bearded man, and it is hard to understand how in
the explanation of his conduct he can use an expression that
is proper only for a baby. But Ivan cannot find a more ex-
act word.

" Well, so I began to humour myself. When father was
alive, I never took a drop. He would have killed me, if I
had, yes, he would have killed me dead with his own hands.
After father died, and I got married and had my own house-
hold, I allowed myself a drink only when I was treated to it,

on a holiday, or once in a while a glass when I felt blue

I was careful, and I watched myself as long as I could. But
when I had my freedom at the railroad station, that is, my
full liberty, then I began, well, in a word, to be short, I let

myself loose I kept it up for days at a time, and I

never could get enough I remember how it all began,

as though it were but yesterday: roadmaster Ivan Rodi-

onych's name day fell on John of the Lent Well, he

poured me out a glass of the grape juice, they call it port

I liked it, as I swallowed it — so I took some more — and
then gin, lemonade Since then that plague has stayed

Glyeb Ivanovich Uspenski 413

with me. And why ? It 's all on account of freedom!

Not being used to it Making an easy living

That 's what it is from! I used to have my pockets

full of money Well, since then I have been a regular

Pig "

So it appears that ' ' freedom, " * ' liberty, easy living,
plenty of money," that is, that which is necessary for a man
to establish himself, causes his whole disorder, until he be-
comes " a regular pig."

' ' Why did you spend your money not on your house but
on drinking? " I ask him.

" That 's the trouble, I was not used to it! Life was too

free to think of house and farm Do anything you

please, and nobody interferes with you In short, there

is a good chance to humour yourself ' '

Seeing that his explanation explains nothing and that I
am unable to understand why an easy life makes a pig of a
man, Ivdn tries to make his idea clearer by an example, such
as peasants are in the habit of having recourse to in their
conversations. I shall here give his example, though I
know that the reader will hardly be much enlightened by it.

" Because," says he, " our peasant nature is n't used to

it We are by nature a working lot Let me tell

you an example There was living in our neighbour-
hood a gentleman, by the name of Podsolnukhov, and he

was farming So he farmed and farmed, and seeing

that there was no profit in farming, he got it into his head
to go into the dairy business. He had no use for our breed
of cattle, and it 's so, our cows are rather thin and coarse-
haired ' Well,' says he, ' I '11 get a cow from abroad.'

He sent for one. A telegram came, the cow was on her way,

and a learned German was bringing her There they

were leading her, why, almost in chains,— such a monster,

some seven feet in height, ten feet in length Her

horns, her eyes, and such things, — God's wonder, — a regu-
lar giant, an Kruslan L^zarevich ' They cleaned out

the cattle yard for her, spread some straw over it, and the
1 Giant of Russian fairy tales.

4H The Nineteenth Century

moment she came, she lay down on her side upon it. And
the German asked for a lamp to be used in the night. Very
well. And the cow remained lying on her side and eating
in that posture. All the women did was to put the feed
within reach of her mouth. She kept on eating, but of milk
there was not a trace.

" * What is the matter,' says I to the German, ' she is not
giving any milk? '

" ' Well,' says he, * she is resting; it 's so and so,' says
he. ' She has been travelling a long distance, and in the
car, and so she is tired, and is taking it easy '

' ' ' How long, ' says I, ' will she be taking it easy ? '

" * Maybe a month.'

" All right. We thought we would let her while away
her time with our village bull, — but that was a dreadful
blunder. No sooner did he lay his eyes on her majestic
form, when he got frightened like a rabbit, for he saw at
once that he, with his country snout, had no business in her
presence, — and so he picked himself up and off he went, and
it was only twelve versts away that some peasants succeeded
in catching him. But she was resting herself all the time.
She ate, and yawned, and ate again At last she evid-
ently felt conscience-stricken and gave a whole pail of milk.
So our master said:

" * Do you see, Ivan ? ' says he, — ' there is no comparison
with our sickly little cows ! '

" ' Well, no, sir,' says I ; ' considering what she has eaten
up, our cattle are worth more.'

" ' How so?'

" ' It 's like this: figure out, how much she has eaten up,
and compare it with the milk she is giving. It 's so, she
does give a pailful, but that pailful costs too much. If
you were to give her feed to ten of our cows, they would
give you ten times the amount this monster is giving you. '

" Says the German: ' She is not the kind of a breed,' says
he, * that 's just good for the milk; she is considering herself
too; she is eating for her own benefit— just look what firm
flesh she has.'

Glyeb Ivinovich Uspenski 415

" After these words says I to my master: ' Do you see, sir/
says I, ' it 's just it: our cows suit our case much better.
We do not care about their flesh, and they do not live for
their benefit, but for work; they give back what they eat
up, and they do not consider themselves. Our cows are
born for work, and for work they live all their lives, — that 's
their purpose. '

" And so there are all kinds of men. And we peasants
are just the same. We work the year round, and all our
lives, without stopping. I tried to get away from my peas-
ant's life, and I have almost killed myself with drinking

There are some who like that which is easy, and who want

to do nothing Some get rich by saving their money, but

when I turned my back on the village and ran away from a
peasant's work, and began to live freely, — my money flew
like chips. All I was interested in was how to get rid of it,
and I could think of no other place to spend it in but the
tavern. What? Well, I '11 make a clean breast of it,"
Ivdn spoke in a whisper, ' ' I had three mamzelles ! I forgot

the Law ! I am speaking before the L,ord Freedom !

liberty ! I was only thinking how to do wrong, pshaw ! I
so far forgot myself that I began to oppress my own kind,
my fellow-peasants! Why did I do it? I had simply lost

my conscience Some cold day they would be looking

for me and having found me in a saloon, they would bow
and say:

" ' L,et us have our hay; we have been here two days and
spending our money, but we can't get at it.'

* ' It seems, it was not much for me to say to my assistant :
* Mikhaylo! Go and get them the car! ' but Satan himself
began to urge me on ; so I sat over my bottle, looking im-
portant, and said: ' You have to do the best you can.'

1 ' ' But, friend, how are we to find it ? We have walked all
over the yards, among whistling engines and no end of
smoke, and we are afraid we shall get killed yet, and we are
worn out besides. '

" ' Look for it ! Find the fellow you need ! '

" ' But you, our protector '

4*6 The Nineteenth Century

" And I would keep them off until someone of those
present would say to them :

" ' Stick three roubles into his mug, — that's what you
want to do ! '

1 1 And it was only thus that I did them any favours If

my wife came my way, I used to scold her roundly. As
long as I stayed in the village I had use for her, but here
where I had my freedom, I had others to pass my time with,
and what was I to do with her, a common peasant woman ?
That 's the kind of lawlessness I came to. I drank more
and more, and the authorities heard of it, and the super-
intendent of the division came and mauled me all up (his
face shone as he was telling this), and the superintendent
of traffic gave me a few mighty blows (a childish joy was
spread over his face), and they took me to the round-house,
and laid it on to me, — so I made the sign of the cross and,
just as if I had risen from the grave, I jumped up, and
started on a run home, without my hat, right through the
cold! Over fields, over snowdrifts, by back roads, I flew
like a bird, not stopping for twenty-five versts, until I was
back to my farm. There I was, in my yard, without a
thing to my name, everything in ruins, but I felt as happy
as if I had been resurrected. Praised be the Lord ! Praised
be the Queen of Heaven ! I am again a man, I have found
myself! I fell to my wife's feet.

' ' ' Forgive me, my dear wife ! Let me work, look after the
farm ! I shall give up all my foolishness, I will be a man
again ! '

" And I went at it with a vim! I loved it all, — my field,
my plough and harrow, the sheds, the calf, the barn that
was beginning to lean to one side, and the fence, and the

woodpile They were all my dear friends, my nearest

ones. It was just terrible to look at the desolation, but it
only gave me more courage. The more work I saw, the
more work there was ahead, the greater was my desire to do

it, and the greater my strength That 's what our

peasant nature is! But there where I had been there was
no work, but all kinds of distractions, — and money; but that

Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov 417

had almost deprived me of my senses, and I dragged my
soul through the mud, as a swine drags her belly. And

what from ? Freedom ! ' '

Ivdn would always begin and end his conversations with
me by this incomprehensible correlation of " freedom " and
"moral fall," but you see, he not only did not make my
misgivings clearer, but considerably increased them.

Aleks«indr Ivdnovich Levitov. (1842-1877.)

Ivevitov was the son of a village priest in the Government of Tatn-
b6v. His early youth was passed at home in sordid peasant surround-
ings, where he learned just enough from his father to be able to read
religious books. A seminarist having provided him with some of the
Russian classics, he acquired a taste for literature and entered a
Seminary. He was a brilliant student, but had to suffer much iusult
from his brutal companions for his physical weakness. Scenes from
the Seminary later formed the main subject of his stories. He then
entered the Moscow University, but soon afterwards transferred him-
self to the Medico-Surgical Institute at St. Petersburg. Having
taken part in some political agitation, he was exiled to the north-
east. Here he associated entirely with the lower classes, confirmed
himself in his vicious habit of drinking, and in his sober moments
composed his excellent Steppe Sketches, that abound in poetical de-
scriptions of southern nature and in detailed pictures of the inhabit-
ants of the steppe. Then began his roving life from town to town,
from one capital to another, living all the time in the purlieus of
the cities, and in cellars, garrets, and outhouses. This, combined
with his chronic state of intoxication, led to consumption, and he
finally died in a clinic. I/evitov has given a series of pictures from
the life of the most degraded townspeople with whom he came in
contact, under the name of The Misery of Country, Roads, and
Towns. They are a reflex of his own experiences and make painful
reading, though, but for some discursiveness, they are artistic in con-
ception and execution.

SHOEMAKER COCK-OF-THE-BOOTS

There was in our village a good fellow, — a shoemaker.
We just called him Cock-of-the-Boots, because he deserved
the name. Early in the morning and late at night you

4i 8 The Nineteenth Century

might have seen him staggering through the village streets,
and yelling, in his drunken fit, and repeating the same
phrase:

" Come out, you village wiseacre, if there is such a one
among you! Come out," he shouted, " and I will have a
chat with you."

But no one dared to come out, being sure to get the worst
of it.

He had come to us from down Usman way. He was such
a thick-set, homely-looking fellow, with thick, monstrous
moustaches, and he wore a blue coat. His wife was as
stubby and homely as he, and all in wrinkles, but she had
on a chintz dress that was good enough for a shopkeeper's
wife and a red shawl over her shoulders. You would think
that the moment he drove into the village he would make
for the inn ? The L,ord bless you, he made plump for the
tavern. That is, he and his wife went into the tavern, but
the cart was left in charge of six good-looking young fel-
lows, all of them in extensible boots, caps, and blue nankeen
coats. They stood around the cart. People began to come
up to them, and somebody asked them:

"Say, what kind of people are you, honourable gentle-
men ? Whence do you come and whither do you tend ? "

' ' Step aside, ' ' they replied to us, ' ' step aside as far as you
can, before dad comes back from the tavern, or there will be
trouble!"

We all had to laugh, seeing that these strapping fellows
were trying to frighten us with their " dad."

We looked around : there he was coming out of the tavern
with a bretzel in his hands, his cap poised way back on his
head, while his wife carried a quart of brandy in her hand,
in order to treat her sons.

"Go ahead," he said, "and drink, and then find some
quarters, for I am sleepy."

Right near the tavern there was living in a hut a crazy
old woman. We had nicknamed her the Blue Rig. She
had no relatives of any sort, and managed to live somehow
by charity. While he was cooling himself off in the tavern,

Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov 419

his youngsters found out that she was helpless, and so they
immediately reported to him :

" Dad, there is hereabouts a destitute old woman. They
call her Blue Rig, and we might stop at her hut."

They settled there, and before long they smoked the old
woman out of her house. The township chief sent some
hundred-men to oust Cock-of-the-Boots, but he gave the
hundred-men a mighty drubbing, and told them that it was
his house, and that the chief had better attend to his own
business.

The chief marvelled at the fellow, and himself came down
upon him with a posse. The whole village went to see the
fun.

Cock-of-the-Boots took up a daring attitude in front of the
chief, his hands akimbo; then he stroked his moustache and
said:

" What made you, sir, come to me when I did not invite
you ? You had better wait for an invitation."

" How dare you ? " began the chief.

Now each of Cock-of-the-Boots' s sons had a special name:
their father called one of them Prince Kutuzov, another
Paskevich, a third Dibich. ' ' They are all my generalis-
simos," he would say. When the chief began to call him
names, he turned to Dibich :

"Dibich! Take him out!"

Dibich, without any further ado, took the chief by his
shoulder and led him out. The hundred-men and some of
the villagers tried to interfere, — but these protectors got
dreadfully mauled by Cock-of-the-Boots and his sons.

" I myself," cried Cock-of-the-Boots, " with my good fel-
lows can kick out two such villages as this. I, ' ' says he,
1 ' will root out any man that will undertake to oppress me,
because I am not afraid of anybody, and my children are
not afraid of anybody but me."

And his wife seconded him: "That 's right," says she,
t * we are not afraid of anybody ! * '

It was a fine family we had to deal with.

"It's now up with Cock-of-the-Boots," we villagers

420 The Nineteenth Century

thought, after that occurrence. " They '11 certainly drag
him to Siberia for insulting such a great gentleman." But
that 's where we were wrong. The chief complained to the
district superintendent, saying: "It is so and so, and I can't
do anything with Cock-of-the-Boots, because," says he, " he
has a powerful lot of sons, and they get the better of the
whole village."

No sooner did Cock-of-the-Boots hear of that letter than
he slung a wallet with a slice of bread over his shoulder,
lighted his pipe,— he had a small pipe with a short carved
stem, — and off he went to the capital of the province. A
lot of gentlemen were just entering the Governor's palace,
and he somehow managed to slip in with them into the
audience room, where he waited for the Governor to appear,
in the meantime angrily twisting his moustache.

Then came his turn.

"Who are you?" asked the Chief, "and what do you
want?"

" I am, sir," answered Cock-of-the-Boots, " a crown peas-
ant and a shoemaker. And what I want is that you should
kick out the township chief, — his name is so and so, — be-
cause he is an embezzler of the Tsar's treasure, and a great
nuisance to the commune. That 's what I want," says he.

They say that the gentlemen that were present were
stunned, seeing how freely he spoke with the General. The
Governor himself frowned and looked for a long time at
Cock-of-the-Boots with angry eyes, and finally he said:

" Do you, Cock-of-the-Boots," says he, " want me to put
you in jail for insulting me in that way ? "

But Cock-of-the-Boots only smiled, and his moustaches
twitched, and he said to the Governor: " Let me tell you,"
says he, " that I won't go to jail, but straight to Peter, to
complain to the Emperor himself; and you are not strong
enough to stop me," says he, " because I am not afraid of
anybody except God in heaven," and he threw his wallet
over his shoulders, and started out.

The gentlemen present could not keep back any longer
and burst out laughing, and the Governor himself laughed.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov 421

' ' What a bold fellow ! ' ' says he, ' ' I have not seen the like
of him in all my life. Fetch him back," says he, "and send
him to my cabinet. I will talk to him later."

" I see no objection to having a talk with him, " said Cock-
of-the-Boots, smiling. "I am always ready to talk to a
Governor."

It is not known what the Governor and he talked about,
only, Cock-of-the-Boots had not yet reached his village
when the township chief had an order from the capital to
the effect that he had been a chief long enough.

ii

You ought to have seen how we ever after honoured Cock-
of-the-Boots. As he and his wife passed a great part of their
time in the tavern, they were treated to many a cup by any-
body who happened to be there and who felt that they must
offer them a part of their just labour. But Cock-of-the-Boots
would keep one of his hands in his pocket, and with the
other he would twist his moustache around his ears, saying :

" Now let we tell you why I am drinking all the time.
It 's because you are all fools, and I can't do anything with
you."

" That 's correct," was the invariable refrain of his wife.

And to tell the truth, if he had not been drinking so hard,
he could have gotten away with many a fellow, for he was
very clever. He was a great hand at his business! He
could make any kind of boots, gentlemen's and shopkeepers'
boots, extensible and simple peasant boots, — it was just a joy
to look at them! The only trouble was, that accursed
Cock-of-the-Boots rarely ever finished a job. He nearly
always carried the leather that his customers gave him to
the tavern to exchange it for drinks.

' ' How did you dare, Cock-of-the-Boots, to buy drinks
with my leather ? ' ' they would ask him.

" Simply because I wanted to," says he.

Nobody entered any complaints against him, because it
did no good. He knew how to amuse all the chiefs with his
conversations and to gain all kinds of favours from them.

422 The Nineteenth Century

They tried to take the law into their own hands, but that
only ended in an all around fight, for his wife and sons took
his side, and also a stalwart sexton, — they called him Kate-
rinych, — and they easily vanquished the whole village.
However, we learned to find our way into Cock-of-the-
Boots's heart, only it took us quite a while to find it out.
All one had to do, when Cock-of-the-Boots had spent the
leather in drinks, was to take at once another piece to him,
and beg him not to spend this second piece.

" Won't you, Grigori Kuzmich, make me a pair of boots
out of this? We '11 square up about the first piece later.'*

' ' That ' s what I like ! ' ' Cock-of-the-Boots would say. "I
like to be trusted! " he would shout, " just as I would like
to trust others, only I have nothing to give." And he im-
mediately ordered his sons to make a special effort with these
boots.

" As you command, dad! " his sons would say, and they
at once set to work, so that you could see chips flying. They
were a fine lot, and they obeyed their parents so that we all
envied them.

" Just look! " the whole village said, " father and mother
are drunkards, but the children are all right." They not
only were skilled in their trade and could read and write,
but every one of them had picked up some specialty : one
could play the accordion, another the guitar, or horn. They
used to go out, of a summer evening, into the street, after
their work was done, and, seating themselves in front of their
hut, they began to play some sweet song. There was not
one of the whole family that did not have a good voice.
Their mother was such an insignificant woman to look at ;
but when she began to trill "Lovely forget-me-not" with
her soft voice, everybody would stop to listen. Cock-of-
the-Boots himself was regarded as a first-class singer in these
entertainments. At first he would start with a fine tenor,
and then he would carry the whole song in a heavy bass.
Where in the world did he get that bass from ?

The whole village and people from the outlying hamlets
used to come to hear them.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov 423

Cock-of-the-Boots lived in this manner for three or four
years. We all got used to his intoxication, and shouting at
night time, and his blaspheming. We quit getting angry
at him, because, in the first place, he was a hopeless case,
and, in the second, he did a great deal of good in the village
and the neighbouring hamlets. For example, if a rich mer-
chant began to flay the people in too open a manner, or the
chief or scribe put down the screws a little too tight, Cock-
of-the-Boots and his friend, the sexton, would go to their
windows and would read them a sermon, which made them
wish they were dead.

* ' Just go away from these windows, good fellows, and stop
this disgraceful business, ' ' such a man would say to them.
" I '11 treat you to all the brand}*- you wish," he would add.

They particularly annoyed the village dean. His daugh-
ters did not dare to go out into the streets, or even stand
outside the door, because the dean had offended the sexton.

" Just wait, Katerfnych! " the dean threatened the sexton,
" I '11 see to it that you get your hair shaved off."

* ' I am ready any minute, ' ' said the sexton, ' ' for I would
rather live with the devil in hell than be under your rule."

The dean would spit out in anger, as he listened to these
talks of the sexton, and would walk away. But Cock-of-
the-Boots and his friend rolled with laughter, and they pro-
claimed all his secrets to the whole Christian world:

' ' We '11 teach you a thing or two! You just make a move
against us! "

When they got tired standing under the window, they lay
down opposite the house, and proceeded with their scolding,
and they would not go away any sooner than they would be
treated to brandy or money. When this was sent out to
them they only laughed:

" Look at these infidel devils! They think that they can
wash down their wrongs with this brandy. Don't worry, you
will not wash them down! " Having had their fun, they
walked away, and the sexton invariably started a chant upon
these occasions.

They were particularly successful in saving young men

424 The Nineteenth Century

from conscription, if these were unjustty worried by the
commune, on account of their poverty or orphaned state.
All such an unfortunate man had to do was to buy a keg of
brandy, paper, and ink, and the sexton was ready to com-
pose a letter. He presented his case to the higher authori-
ties in so convincing a manner that many a recruit was
returned from service and the commune received severe
reprimands. And if the higher authorities stood in with the
commune against these luckless fellows, our scribes would add
a postscript to their petition to the effect that: "If your
honour will not free Ivan L,uchin who has been shaven a re-
cruit against the law, we will at once go to Peter to complain
to our father the Tsar. ' ' And they both signed that letter.

1 ( This petition, ' ' they wrote, * ' has been signed in person
by the village sexton Kuzma Lukich Zabubenny and the
crown peasant and shoemaker Grigori Kuzmich, nicknamed
Cock-of-the-Boots."

Many a fellow was freed after such a letter. But they
refused to intervene in the case of a man whose evident fate
it was to be a soldier, and in no case did they receive any
other remuneration than brandy.

It was on account of his good soul, which we all saw, that
we did not interfere with his drinking. All of a sudden we
heard the news of a general conscription.

Our town officers scared us with such phrases: "There
will be an unusually large conscription. Three countries
have risen against us. We '11 have a job on hand."

" Well," we said, " if there is to be a big conscription, let
there be. Evidently it has to be." In the meantime we
began to fit out any of the young fellows that might be
called, that they might be ready at any time and hour, for
it was not for a day or two that our youngsters were to leave

These rumours began to spread just before the battle of
Sebastopol.

At last the time came to draw lots, and then to be ex-
amined as recruits. Cock-of-the-Boot s did not have to worry
about his sons for something like three years, because a

Aleksandr Ivanovich Levitov 425

nephew of his had become a soldier and, consequently, his
family was for the time being exempt.

' ' This Cock-of-the-Boots is a lucky chap, ' ' we said. ' ' He
has raised six fine eagles, and there they are to stay at home. ' '

One morning, we saw to our surprise that Cock-of-the-
Boots was starting out on the road with all his sons. He
was walking at their head and smoking his pipe, and he
looked gloomy and his moustache hung down, but he was
not drunk. The mother was accompanying them and weep-
ing torrents of tears.

" Where are you starting out, Grigori Kuzmich? Have
you taken a liking to another place, and do you want to
leave us? "

" Good-bye, friends! " he said. " I am going to enter my
sons, every one of them, into the army, because a large host
is up against us, and there are as many of them as stars in
heaven."

Sexton Kuzma was walking with them.

" Orthodox people," he said, "don't recall me with an
evil thought! I sha'n't think of you at all, because I am sick
of your foolishness. I '11 try to find a place somewhere."

" They are jesting! " we thought. " They are, no doubt,
going out on the chase or catching fish."

But it was not a jest at all. He really inscribed all his
sons and the sexton in the army ! And the provincial au-
thorities were so much pleased with his act, that he and his
boys received a great deal of money, and he was promised
that all his sons and the sexton were to serve in one and the
same company.

They had wanted to put all his sons in the bodyguard,
but Cock-of-the-Boots begged them to let them go straight-
way to the war.

" I have brought them to go against the enemy," he said.

The authorities gave him a written document in which
they expressed their thanks to him. When he returned
home, he hung that letter up in the hut of the Blue Rig, and
started on a protracted spree.

His wife could not believe for a long time that he would

426 The Nineteenth Century

give up all his sons at once. She kept on hoping that to-
day, or to-morrow, one of them at least would return, say,
the youngest. But when she saw that there was no return
from the army, she joined her husband in the spree.

She was all bent up and crushed, and she sailed along,
vainly moving her hands, and mumbling something; her
red shawl fell down from one shoulder and dragged along
the ground.

She did not long continue to walk that way. She soon
died. While on her deathbed, she gave her husband a ter-
rible tongue-lashing for having separated her from her dear
children.

Some people came to look at the dead person, and they
found Cock-of-the-Boots talking to her as if she were alive,
for he was dreadfully drunk just then.

"Foolish woman!" he muttered. "You do not know
your own good luck. You will be better off there! I my-
self have long wished to die, but death does not come to me."

He muttered that in an undertone, and not aloud as he
used to. It was a pity to see him left so alone. The hut
looked dreadfully desolate, and destitute of everything.
The stove had all fallen in. The Blue Rig, tattered and
torn, and all wrinkled up, lay on the stove, and looked at
everybody like an insensate beast, and angrily gnashed her
teeth at them

in

Cock-of-the-Boots became gentler than a lamb when his
family had all left him. He sat for days at a time in the hut
with the Blue Rig, and they looked at each other. Village
urchins came in and made fun of the old people, but they re-
ceived no reply. Only at midnight, when the whole village
was asleep, the neighbours could hear Cock-of-the-Boots
wailing:

" My children, my children, what have I done with you ? "

Neighbours stole up to the window, and they saw him

wallowing on the ground and tearing his hair. In daytime

he again sat down in his den, not leaving his place, and he

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski 427

was so sad, grey, and bald. When the villagers saw that the
old people not only could not provide for themselves, but
were even too weak to go a-begging, they began to bring
them bread, water, and kvas.

"Why do you sit here, Grigori Kuzmfch?" old people
would ask him, when he came a little to his senses.

" I am waiting for death, dear people! Maybe it will
carry away my great grief, which I have tried all my
life to drown in the taverns, but never succeeded in drown-
ing! " And he began to weep bitterly, tears flowing in
torrents.

We wondered much what grief he was talking about. He
had feasted nearly all his life in taverns at other people's
expense, and now he was grieving. If he was weeping for
his sons, he had himself taken them to be inscribed in the
army.

His grief must, indeed, have been very great, for he la-
mented dreadfully at night, and often woke us up. He
woke us with his awful cries, like the sound of the house
spirit when he calls for an evil omen ; and we, hearing them,
were very much frightened and, rising in the morning, fer-
vently prayed to our Lord

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski. (1845-.)

Zlatovrdtski, the son of a village priest, was born in Vladimir,
where he attended the Gymnasium. His father having established a
library for the people, Zlatovrdtski had an opportunity to acquaint
himself with Russian literature. He then studied at the St. Peters-
burg Technological Institute, but his extreme poverty compelled
him to look for work, and he became a proof-reader in one of the
newspapers. This gave him an impetus to try himself in authorship,
and his first sketch, The Murrain, appeared in 1866. Since then he
has written a large number of shorter and longer stories, dealing
with the life of the peasants in the period of the emancipation, and
also with the intelligent classes at the same time. To the latter he
assumes a negative attitude, regarding them as having departed from
the simple, fundamental life of the Russian peasant. Though he
treats his peasants with more consideration, there is a strong element
of pessimism even in the sketches of that kind, thus, differing from

428 The Nineteenth Century

the similar stories by Uspdnski. They also differ from Uspe"nski's
novels by the musicalness of their language and the greater wealth
of detailed descriptions. Among his best stories are The History of
a Village -, Village Work Days, The Karavaevs, The Wanderer.

OLD SHADOWS

In moments of heavy anguish of soul my " little grand-
father" would visit me, and he brought with him from the
darkness of oblivion a series of just such little and insignifi-
cant existences as himself. My childhood and youth are, it
seems, inseparably connected with these little existences.
I particularly recall those strange, mysterious forms that
suddenly appeared, one knew not whence, — both in our
" old house " in the provincial city, and in the old, weather-
stained cabin of my grandfather, — and just so vanished, one
knew not whither. They were wandering shadows that
frightened our childish imagination, — especially, since my
grandmother, whom I cannot picture to myself otherwise
than in an enormous kerchief, with overhanging eyebrows
and a huge frying fork in her hand, had no use for them and
called them ' ' tramps, " ' ' loafing people, ' ' and ' ' worthless
lot." Yet, in spite of the existence of my stern old grand-
mother, who always appeared before me as an incarnation
of that stern period,— these " loafing people," it seemed to
me, were breeding more and more in our Russian land, and
with it my stern grandmother gave ever more a piece of her
mind to my visionary mother and to the " village windbag,"
my little grandfather, who were giving refuge to these peo-
ple, and to whom, it seemed, they clung as a moth flits about
the light.

Dimly pass before me those strange, mysterious forms
which that irrevocable past produced in such large numbers.
I have before my mind the tall, smoke-stained old cabin of
my grandfather that was roughly made of big logs. It is
warm within, but in the open the frost is getting stronger
towards evening. Half of the panes are already covered
with downy hoar-frost, and there is a thumping, crackling
sound now in one corner, now in another. Grandfather is

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski 429

sitting by a tallow dip, hurrying to mend his leaky felt boot
with a piece of leather. Mother is solemnly and chantingly
reading the versified paraphrase of the psalms, distinctly
pronouncing the words, — and I enjoy the harmonious sound
of the words, though I ill understand their meaning.

Sister and I are snuggled up under a warm sheepskin,
and we silently move in some frivolous fairy world, for which
there is no time and no space: from the fantastic coun-
tries of the Eastern Shaherezade we are rapidly transferred
to the warm, soft shores of the Jordan, to the stern kingdom
of the Pharaohs, or suddenly we are borne in the whirl of a
joyous, bright light, amidst a sea of festive sounds of music,
to the splendour of a new, frivolous world of European
capitals, whither so enticingly beckon and call us all those
vigorous, fresh young people, who had managed before us to
escape from the harsh and murky habitations of the manorial

hamlets Though sister and I are not saying anything,

yet I am quite convinced that her thoughts are taking her
to the same regions. I need only ask her : * ' Do you remem-
ber the letter mother read us yesterday from Uncle Sasha in
St. Petersburg ? " in order to be sure that her youthful fancy
will immediately carry her, as it has carried me, far, far away
from these dim and dusky, though warm, walls of grand-
father's cabin.

Suddenly a heavy creaking is heard on the bridge; the
gate ring rattles; someone coughs behind the door. We
all listen intently ; the door is opened timidly and with in-
decision, and on the threshold appears a tall, lean, strange
figure, merged in steaming frost: he has on a long sheep-
skin coat that is covered with snow, and on his head is a
tall, thick, cotton-filled cap and in his hands a long staff;
over his shoulder hangs a long calfskin-covered wallet; he
has a long, thin, wet face, with sunken cheeks, thick tufts
of a greyish beard, and timid, black eyes under long brows.

11 Peace and blessing be upon your house! " distinctly
enounces the stranger on the threshold, without moving
from the spot.

" Thank you," says grandfather. "Whither are you

430 The Nineteenth Century

bound? Masha, get a slice of bread from grandmother, — say
it 's for a pilgrim."

" Don't you recognise me, father ? " in the meantime asks
the pilgrim, without leaving the threshold.

" No, no Or are we acquaintances?" says grand-
father, as he is looking for his glasses. ' ' Who are you ? ' '

The pilgrim timidly surveys the room with his penetrating
black eyes, and softly says:

" A despised servant of the Lord, a slave of men — the
manorial servant Aleksandr — the wandering Jew, the ac-
cursed Ahasuerus "

" O Aleksandr! I do recognise you, I do," says grand-
father. * ' You want to warm yourself and stay over night ;

you are tired, no doubt. We will find a place! Sit

down, Aleksandr, pilgrim of the Lord ! ' '

11 Will you let me, father?" the pilgrim asks again, still
timidly surveying all around him.

' ' Have no fear, no fear ! The Lord be with you, come in,
make yourself at home! "

The pilgrim slowly and with indecision takes off his
wallet, and seats himself on the bench with a heavy
sigh.

" Well, Aleksandr, have you not yet found rest for your
soul ? " asks grandfather.

But the pilgrim sits in silence, and lowers his head.

Then a deep sigh is heard again issuing from his breast.
Then he begins to speak clearly, without hurrying, lowering
his eyes all the time, as if ashamed to look at us.

' ' I have crossed all the borders — have been everywhere

— have visited all the holy places I have been in the

countries of the midday sun and of midnight — on sultry

Athon and in the cold Solovetsk cells Everywhere,

father I have continually looked for the eternal city,

and there is no refuge for the despised slave ! Father, I

have suffered hunger and cold In summer and in

winter I, as a thief, hide from the light, and wander at

night-time I come into cities, and they drive me out,

I knock at the cells, and they do not receive the outcast- —

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski 431

I see neither my kin, nor my relations, neither wife, nor

children, who abide in servitude Be accursed, despised

slave, for having thought of liberty, abandoning your roof,
and departing from your kin ! If I should wish to re-
turn to the house of my master, my children and my kin
would deny me, for the fear of the Jews, and my master

would turn me over to mockery and to outrage I am

afraid to return to slavery, and I shall wander about, as a
thief, and my refuge shall be the lair of beasts ' '

And suddenly the pilgrim falls upon his knees with a dull
sound, and begins to pray. For a long time are heard,
amidst a complete silence, the deep sighs of the pilgrim and
now and then a moan of my grandfather.

My mother, and sister, and I look with fixed attention at
that lean, bony face, which is as swarthy as if cast of
bronze, and on which lie the clear traces of his endless
wanderings and immeasurable sorrow.

The pilgrim rises, straightens himself up, and still keeps
his eyes on the holy image. Large tears course down his
cheeks, while his black eyes sparkle at the same time evil
despair and stern faith.

" Father! " he suddenly speaks, raising his hand to the

image. " There — there let us seek the eternal city!

Only there There they will not cast you off "

" But do not despair, Aleksandr! God will uplift you,"
says grandfather. ' ' There is not a tear, Aleksandr, that
floweth in vain, and is not heard at the throne of the

Almighty! Not a hair of your head shall perish Seek,

and you shall always find! Knock, and the gates of truth

shall be opened unto you ! Sit down, Aleksandr, and

strengthen yourself with what God hath sent."

The pilgrim is, it seems, quieted down, and he seats him-
self on the bench again ; but now his head is raised, and his
gleaming eyes look somewhere into the distance, as if they
pierced the walls of our cabin, and a strange struggle shines
in them, as if they did not yet know on what to rest their
choice : on heaven or on earth.

" Well, Aleksdndr, tell us something about God's world.

432 The Nineteenth Century

Many things are revealed to you pilgrims. Come, sit down
here!"

The pilgrim seats himself at the table, and I see my
mother, her eyes burning with some mysterious curiosity,
moving up towards him, placing her arms on the table,
leaning her head upon them, and fixing her dreamy eyes
upon the pilgrim's face.

And the pilgrim begins to speak. But my childish im-
agination is only impressed by his stern, misty form, and has
preserved nothing else, and I recall his speeches only as the
din of a turbid torrent that runs across the endless steppes.
And over these steppes rapidly marches, driven by the wind,
the tall, stern figure that is in vain seeking a place where
the son of man may lay down his head.

And the pilgrim has not yet ended his stories, which, it
seems, are so long that they last a whole night, and a day,
and again a night, when there appears in the door of our cabin
a new strange being that strikes our childish imagination.

At first we see only an immense old rough sheepskin coat
that is held together by a belt, and large old felt boots, but
it is quite impossible to define the sex, the age, or the occu-
pation of the person that is hidden in the recesses of that
huge coat, above which is barely seen the head so tightly
wrapped in a frosted shawl that even the eyes cannot be
discerned. The strange coat nervously and rapidly makes
three deep inclinations before the holy image, and then to
the corners of the room, and just as rapidly begins to un-
ravel the shawl, and by degrees appears, at first, a thin,
grey beard, then a thin, long nose, small, mouse-like, grey
eyes, and finally an immense bald head is freed from a sheep-
skin cap, here and there feathered with dishevelled tufts of
greyish red hair. And when the coat suddenly and unex-
pectedly falls off in the corner, — there stands before us one
of the commonest, the most ' ' insignificant ' ' of the ' * worth-
less lot " who, in the opinion of my grandmother, live in this
world: it is an old serf, in a patched and torn gabardine.
No sooner does the peasant feel himself freed from the
weight of the huge sheepskin that has oppressed him, than

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski 433

he becomes nervously alive, sweetly smiles upon us all, bows
again and again into both corners, and, rapidly twitching
his feet before grandfather, cries out in an entreating voice :
"Most worshipful one! Father! Give me a lodging!
Refresh me! Give me hope! "

"Ah, Filimon, Filimon! Is it you again?" says my
" little grandfather" in evident agitation, trying to find his
snuff-box.

"Yes, I, worshipful man. Do not misjudge me," says
the peasant so softly that you would think he was afraid of
his own voice.

"Ah, Filimon! " says grandfather, for some reason shak-
ing his head in anguish and trying to console himself with
a pinch of snuff. ' ' When will you come to rest ? Friend,
is there a living spot in you ? "

It appears to us, indeed, that there is not a living spot in
the peasant: neither muscles, nor flesh, nor blood, — nothing
but strong, indestructible bones enclosed in a dark-brown
skin.

The peasant, after grandfather's words, smiles even more
entreatingly ; his grey, little eyes apparently become even
smaller, — and he suddenly grows once more enlivened and
agitated; all his bony members are in motion, and, as if
seized by some unusual care, he begins to rummage in the
breast of his torn outer garment.

He finally brings to light something that is wrapped in
a dark kerchief. He cautiously opens it with his trembling
fingers and, timidly turning to both sides, with a careworn
glance places before grandfather some old, stained papers,
and again makes a low bow before him.

" Worshipful one! I have a request to make."

" Ah, Filimon! Ah, Filimon! " sighs grandfather, again
shaking his head in anguish : ' * Why do you tempt God our
Lord ? If you do not care for yourself, think of your kin.
Pacify your spirit ! It is enough ! Enough, Filimon ! You
have chastised yourself enough, my friend! The Lord
seeth, the Lord hath weighed and measured. He detnand-
eth not complete exhaustion. Do not tempt fate! "

VOL. II. — 28.

434 The Nineteenth Century

' * Most worshipful man ! I am going ! I have to care for
people! I must go!"

" Whither are you going, senseless man ? Take a breath.
At least heal your old wounds. Take your ease! "

" Father, they are healed! Do not misjudge me! I am
going — to the higher realms! "

And the peasant once more looks entreatingly into grand-
father's face, and it seems to us that grandfather is unable
to withstand that entreating glance.

And grandfather rises, his glance becomes stern and seri-
ous, and he says with severity :

11 Filimon ! Have pity on me ! God will punish me, your
councillor and abettor, for you ! ' '

"Father, do not deny me! I will knock once more:

knock, knock, knock ! Maybe the Lord will grant me

Just this way , lightly , father : knock, knock, knock ! 'Who
is there?' they will ask. ' 'T is I,' says I, as before.
"Tisl."'

* ' How many times have you gone to knock ? ' '

" 'T is the eighth time, father. JT is the eighth for the
higher realms. I was driven off six times. Six times they
flayed me "

' ' Dear Filim6n, how much will there be left of you ?
Take pity on yourself. Pity me, I pray, pity my soul.
Why should I aid in your suffering and destruction ? "

The peasant once more smiles entreatingly into grand-
father's face, and suddenly falls down before his feet.

' ' Most worshipful one ! Do not begrudge me ! ' '

And rising to his feet just as swiftly, he nervously and
excitedly flourishes his dry, bony hands, lets his mouse-like
eyes roam timidly in the corners, and begins to speak, with-
out cessation, as if everything is to come down in a rain,
everything he has been carrying hither with the greatest care

for days and miles It is one endless, intent murmur, like

the distant din of the mill water, interrupted by some sudden
exclamations that make our childish hearts tremble with
fear.

I remember how that intent murmur of the bony peasant

Nikolay Nikolaevich Zlatovratski 435

made my head feel as though compressed in a vise, how
terribly my blood beat in my temples, so that I was ready to
burst out into sobs and run away from the cabin, — far, far
away from that terrible murmur, in spite of the frost, and the
deep snowdrifts, and the night storm that howled around our
cabin. And if that dreadful murmur that racked my nerves
had lasted one minute longer, I should have come out from
under my warm fur, and should have, indeed, run away as
in a delirium. But the " little grandfather " stepped up to
us, and thoughtfully stroked our heads. Why did he do it ?
He, evidently, did not notice it himself. Or, maybe, he
unconsciously wanted to ask our consent for something.
And, interrupting the peasant, he said:

" Filimon! For the last time, absolutely. I feel it, it is
for the last time. There shall be an end ! It can't be other-
wise ! There must be an end ! The Lord is great in His
long-suffering, that is true, but also terrible in His anger! "

The peasant's face beams with pleasure, and he at once
breaks off his murmur.

' ' What shall I write about ? ' ' asks grandfather.

"Father, write the whole truth. Tell straight about
everything. Hide nothing, and have no mercy upon us:
crush the blood of Judas! The blood of Judas has begun to
oppress the people! The main thing, father, tell the whole
truth about everything. ' '

And the peasant solemnly raises his hands to heaven.

" Write! I have suffered, and I can suffer more. I am
afraid of no new prison, and of no new chains. Most wor-
shipful one, have no mercy ! Write ! ' '

And for a long, long time, through the speechless quiet
of a winter night and through our disturbed dreams, we see
the bony little peasant, with his entreating smile and a cer-
tain childishly naive decision and faith, that enlighten his
whole little face, and our " little grandfather," who has sud-
denly become so serious and stern and who with the con-
sciousness of some great obligation is slowly and deliberately
drawing his legible semi-uncial letters on the paper.

"Write, write, father! There is truth! There will be

436 The Nineteenth Century

truth! " we again hear the voice of the bony peasant, and
the longer he watches grandfather's pen, the brighter, it
seems, his face is growing.

We are, for some reason, happy for the peasant and for
grandfather, but at the same time we are oppressed by a
mysterious feeling of terror and of fear, because it seems to
us that our stern grandmother will soon come out of the
living rooms, and will angrily cast her suspicious glance
upon all of us " useless" and " loafing" people, and will
cry:

" Where did that worthless lot come from? Whence
does God carry them ? Evidently punishments and threats

do not take off all the loafing people What have

you found in each other ? And why do you stick to each
other, like flies to honey ? Well, this one has been half-
witted from her birth," grandmother shakes her head at my
mother, ''but you, old man? O deacon! Some evil will
befall you, some evil will ! Make a note of my words. You
will get a terrible reward for all these people! "

But the " loafing people," who at first are really grieved
and intimidated by the angry words of my stern grand-
mother, not only do not disappear, but grow more and more.

Vladimir Galakti6novich Korotenko. (1853.-)

Korole"nko is descended on his father's side from the Cossacks ;
his mother was the daughter of a Polish landed proprietor. He
graduated from a Real-Gymnasium in the Government of Zhitomir,
and then, under untold hardships, studied in the Technological
Institute of St. Petersburg and Peter's Academy in Moscow. Here
he was arrested for addressing a collective petition to the director of
the school, and was sent to the Government of Vol6gda, and thence
back to Kr6nstadt, where his family was residing. The next year he
settled in St. Petersburg where he read proof. In 1879 he was again
arrested, and his wanderings through all parts of European Russia
and Siberia began. His first stories were published in 1879, but the
first to attract the attention of the public was his Mak&r>s Dream,
which deals with the semi-savages of the Siberian Tayga. The
artistic perfection of his style, the harmoniousness of his diction,
and the completeness of his stories are rare qualities among modern
Russian authors. The sadness of his stories is not of the heart-

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko 437

rending, cheerless kind, and rather invites a rereading. Among his
best known books and separate sketches are The Blind Musician ,
The Forest Rustles, The Old Bell-ringer, In Bad Society.

Many of Korol£nko's stories have been well translated into Bng-
lish: The Vagrant and Other Tales (containing The Old Bell-
ringer, The Forest Roughs, Easter Night, A Saghalinian, Sketches
of a Siberian Tourist}, translated by Mrs. A. Delano, New York and
Boston, 1887 (2d ed. 1896) ; The Blind Musician, translated by Mrs.
A. Delano, with an introduction by G. Kennan, Boston, 1890 ; the
same, translated by W. Westall and S. Stepniak (International
Series, No. 100), New York, 1890 (2d ed. 1893); the same (Seaside
Library, No. 1515), New York, 1890; Makar's Dream, in Cosmo-
politan, vol. vi. ; A Queer Girl, in Free Russia, vol. ii., Nos. 9 and
10, and In the Famine Year, vol. x., No. 2 ; A Saghalien Convict (in
Pseudonym Library) ; In Two Moods (and In Bad Society), trans-
lated by S. Stepniak and W. Westall (Novell's International Series,
No. 178), New York, 1891, and (Seaside Library, No. 1943) New
York, 1892 ; The Old Bell-ringer, translated by M. P. deSchatokhin,
in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 8 ; An Involuntary
Murderer, translated by Jessie Mackenzie, in Gentleman's Magazine,
1898.

THE OLD BELL-RINGER

A SPRING IDYLL

It grows dark. Over the black, crenelated line of the
dense forest stands the full moon; it stands, but does not

shine A small settlement that nestles over the distant

brook, in the pine forest, is merged in that peculiar twilight,
so common to spring nights, when the moon stands pensively
over the horizon, shrouded by a smoky veil. The mist, ris-
ing from the earth, thickens the long shadows of the woods

and covers the open places with a silvery azure glamour

All is quiet, pensive, melancholy.

The village slumbers quietly.

The humble cabins barely stand out in their dark con-
tours; here and there glimmer fires; now and then a gate
creaks, a watchful dog barks, and all is silent again. At
times there issue from the dark mass of the softly rustling
forest the figures of pedestrians, there passes by a rider,
creaks a vehicle. These are the inhabitants of lonely forest

438 The Nineteenth Century

hamlets who are going to their church to meet the spring
holiday.

The church stands on a mound, in the centre of the vil-
lage. Its windows are bright with lights. The tall, murky,
old belfry is lost with its spire in the azure.

The steps of the staircase are creaking The old bell-
ringer Mikhyeich is ascending the bell tower, and soon his
little lantern will be suspended in mid-air, like a shooting
star in space

It is hard for the old man to climb the steep staircase.
His old legs do not serve him well, he is worn out, and his

eyes see but dimly 'T is time, it has long been time,

that the old man should take his rest, but God does not send
him death. He has buried his sons, has buried his grand-
children, has accompanied old men to their celestial dwell-
ing, has accompanied young men, but he is still alive. 'T is

hard Many is the time he has met the spring holiday,

and he has lost the count of how often he has waited for the
appointed time on that very bell tower. And there God has
again decreed

The old man walks to the opening in the tower and leans
over the banister. Below, around the church, the graves of
the village cemetery dot the darkness; the old crosses look
as though they protected them with their outstretched arms.

Here and there leafless birches bend over, them From

there, below, is wafted to Mikhye*ich the aromatic odour of
young buds and reminds him of the melancholy silence of the
eternal sleep

What will become of him in a year ? Will he again climb
to this top, under the brass bell, in order to awaken light-
sleeping night by its metallic din, or will he lie — down there,
in the dark corner of the cemetery, under a cross ? God

knows He is prepared: in the meanwhile may God

grant him to meet the holiday once more. * ' Glory to Thee,
Lord! " his old lips mutter the customary formula and he
looks upwards, at the starred heaven that glows with a mil-
lion lights, and he makes the sign of the cross

" Mikhyeich, oh, Mikhyeich! " calls out to him from be-

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko 439

low the tremulous voice of an old man. The aged sexton
looks up at the belfry, shades his unsteady and tearful eyes
with his open hand, but he does not see Mikhye*ich.

" What do you want? Here I am! " answers the bell-
ringer, as he leans over the banister. " Can't you see
me?"

" No, I can't. Say, is it not time to ring ? What do you
think?"

Both look at the stars. Thousands of God's fires twinkle
down to them from on high. The fiery " Wain " has risen
way above them Mikhye*ich is making his calculation.

' ' No, not yet, wait a bit I know when ' '

He does know. He needs no watch: God's stars will tell
him when the time has come. Heaven and earth, and the
white cloud that gently swims in the azure, and the murky
forest that indistinctly whispers below, and the plash of the
brook lost in the darkness, — all that is familiar to him, all

that is his own Not in vain has he passed his whole

life here

The distant past arises before him He recollects how

he for the first time climbed this bell tower with his father.
Lord, how long ago that is — and yet how recent! He
sees himself a blonde boy; his eyes are aflame; the wind —
not the wind that raises the dust in the streets, but some
special kind of wind that flaps its noiseless wings way above

the earth — dishevels his hair Below, way, way down,

walk tiny people, and the huts of the village are tiny too,
and the forest has receded, and the round clearing in which
the village is situated looks so enormous, so endless

" Oh, there it is, all of it there! " the grey -haired old man
smiles as he looks down at the small clearing.

That is the way with life. In your youth you can't see
the end of it, and there it is, all of it, as if in the palm of
your hand, from the beginning to that very little grave that
he has taken a fancy to for himself in the corner of the
cemetery. Well, glory to Thee, lyord! 't is time for rest.
The hard road has been passed honourably, and the damp
earth is his mother Soon, yes, very soon!

440 The Nineteenth Century

But, it must be time! He looks once more at the stars,
rises, takes off his cap, makes the sign of the cross, grasps

the bell ropes A minute later the night air reverberates

from the hollow stroke — another, a third, a fourth — one after
the other, filling the light-sleeping night of the holiday's
eve, there flow the mighty, drawn-out sonorous singing
sounds

The ringing stops. In the church begins the service.
In former years Mikhy&ch used to go down the staircase
and stand in the corner, at the door, in order to pray and
hear the singing. But this time he stays in his belfry. It
is hard for him to climb the stairs, and besides, he feels
rather tired. He seats himself on the bench and, hearing
the dying din of the rocking brass, falls into deep musing.
About what? He is hardly able to answer that himself.
The tower is dimly illumined by the lantern. The dull-
sounding bells are merged in darkness; below, from the
church, the singing reaches him from time to time as a weak
murmur, and the night wind agitates the ropes that are
attached to the iron hearts of the bells.

The old man bends on his breast his grey head that is
disturbed by disconnected pictures. " They are singing the
troparion ! " he thinks to himself, and sees himself in the
church. In the chancel dozens of children's voices flow
together; the aged priest, Father Natim of blessed memory,
reads the litany with a quivering voice; hundreds of peas-
ants' heads bow down and rise again, like the ripe ears when
the wind blows through them. The peasants make the sign
of the cross. They are all familiar faces, and all of them
now dead. There is the stern face of his father; there his
elder brother is with fervour making the sign of the cross,
and sighing, as he is standing by the side of his father.
There he is himself, abloom with health and strength,
full of unconscious hope of future happiness and joys of
life Where is that happiness? The old man's mem-
ory flashes like a dying flame and a bright beam, glid-
ing through his consciousness, for a moment illumines all
the nooks of his past life. He sees work above endurance,

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko 441

sorrow, care. Where is that happiness? A hard lot will
make furrows on his young brow, will bend his powerful
spine, will teach him to sigh, like his elder brother.

There, at the left, among the village women, stands his
young wife, modestly bending her head. She has been a
good woman, may she come to the kingdom of heaven!
She has suffered so much, the dear woman. Want and
work, and a woman's inevitable sorrow will dry up her
beauty; her eyes will grow dim, and an expression of an
eternal, dull fear of sudden calamities will take the place of
serenity in her face. Yes, where is her happiness? One
son is left to them, their hope and joy, and human injustice
has overpowered him.

There is also that rich fiend; he makes low obeisances,
asking forgiveness for the bloody tears of orphans. He fer-
vently crosses himself and falls upon his knees, and strikes
his brow against the floor. And Mikhy Mich's heart boils
furiously, and the dusky faces of the images look down from
the walls upon human misery and human injustice.

All that is past, all that is behind him. Now his whole
world is here in the dark tower, where the wind moans in
the night and swings the bell-ropes. " God be your judge,
God be your judge! " mutters the old man and bends his
grey head, and tears gently roll down the old cheeks of the
bell-ringer.

" Mikhyeich, oh, Mikhyeich! Oh there, have you fallen
asleep ? ' ' they shout below.

" What? " the old man cries out and jumps to his feet.
" Lord! Have I really fallen asleep ? Never before have I
so disgraced myself! "

Mikhyeich hastens to lay his hands on the ropes. Below
him the peasant crowd moves about like an ant-hill; banners
wave in the air and glimmer with their gilt brocade. The
procession of the cross has made the round of the church,
and the joyous call reaches Mikhyeich' s ears:

" Christ is risen from the dead! "

And this call stirs a wave in the old man's heart. It
seems to him that the flames of the wax tapers have burnt

442 The Nineteenth Century

up more brightly in the darkness, and the crowd is more
agitated, and the banners flutter, and the wakened wind
seizes the waves of sound and with broad pinions carries them
up, to run together with the loud, solemn tones of the bells.

Old Mikhyeich rings as he has never rung before.

It seems as though the old man's full heart has passed
into the dead brass, and the tones sing and waver, laugh
and weep, and interweaving in a mighty stream are borne
upwards, to the starry heaven. And the stars flash more
brightly and burn, and the tones tremble and pour down
and fall to the earth with loving grace.

A deep bass cries out loud in mighty tones that announces
to heaven and earth : ' * Christ is risen ! ' '

And two tenors, trembling with the alternate beats of their
iron hearts, respond merrily and clangorously : "Christ is
risen!"

And two soft sopranos, seemingly hastening not to be
behindhand, push themselves in between the larger ones,
and joyfully, like little children, sing out rapidly: " Christ
is risen ! ' '

And it seems as though the old tower were trembling
and shaking, and as though the wind that blows around the
face of the bell-ringer flapped its mighty pinions and re-
peated : * * Christ is risen ! ' '

The old heart forgets life that is full of cares and injury.
The old bell-ringer forgets that his life is confined to the
grim narrow space in the bell-tower, that he is alone in the
world, like a lonely trunk that the storms have broken. He
hears those singing and weeping sounds that rise to the
heaven on high and fall down to poor earth, and it seems to
him that he is surrounded by his sons and grandchildren,
that he hears their joyful voices; the voices of the old and
young are combined into a chorus, and they sing to him of
happiness and joy, which he has not known in his life. The
old bell-ringer jerks the ropes, tears roll down his face, and
his heart beats violently with the illusion of happiness.

Down below people listen and say to each other that never
before has old Mikhyeich rung the bells so wonderfully.

Vsevolod Mikhaylovich Garshin 443

Suddenly the great bell utters an uncertain tone, and
grows dumb. The disturbed smaller bells ring out with an
unfinished trill, cutting it short, as if to listen to the sad
hollow note which trembles and flows and weeps, gradually
dying upon the air. The old bell-ringer drops down upon
the bench in utter exhaustion, and two last tears softly roll
over his pale cheeks

" Ho there, send up a change; the old bell-ringer has done
his ringing ' '

Vsevolod Mikhdylovich Garshin. (1855-1888.)

Garshin was born in the Government of Ekaterinosldv, where his
father was a small landed proprietor. In his early childhood he
travelled a great deal over Russia, as his father was in the military
service. He was placed in the Gymnasium at St. Petersburg, and
there he excelled as a student, but in 1872 he had the first attacks of
insanity which afterwards returned periodically and finally caused
him to commit suicide by throwing himself headlong from an upper
story. He took part in the Turko-Russian War as a common soldier,
and while in the field composed his first story, Four Days, in which
he described the suffering of a wounded comrade of his. Upon his
return he wrote, in his lucid intervals, a series of wonderfully
realistic stories, many of which deal with painful situations. Among
his best are The Coward, The Artists, The Red Flower, Attalea
Princeps, and That Which Was Not.

In English translation are : Four Days, translated by N. H. Dole,
in Poet Lore, vol. iii. ; Mad Love, or, An Artist's Dream, London,
1890, and Stories, translated by E. L. Voynicb, London, 1893.

THAT WHICH WAS NOT

One beautiful June day — it was beautiful because it was
twenty-eight degrees Reaumur — one beautiful June day it
was warm everywhere, but it was even warmer in the clear-
ing in the garden, where stood some ricks of newly mown
hay, because the place was protected from the wind by a
thick, impenetrable, cherry grove. Nearly everything was
asleep: people had had their fill and were devoting them-
selves to post-prandial lateral occupations; the birds were

444 The Nineteenth Century

silent ; and even many insects had sought shelter from the
heat.

That was even more true of the domestic animals: the
cattle took refuge under some roof; the dog lay in a hole
that he had dug out under the barn and, with eyes half open,
breathed intermittently, while sticking out his tongue for
almost more than a foot; at times he so yawned, evidently
from ennui superinduced by the deadly heat, that one could
hear a falsetto whine; the pigs, mother and her thirteen
young ones, went down to the river bank and there lay down
in the black, thick mud whence issued only their panting
and snoring pig coins with two holes in them, their oblong,
mud-washed spines, and enormous pendent ears. Only the
hens were not afraid of the heat and managed to kill time
by scratching up the dry earth opposite the kitchen entry,
though they knew full well that there was not a kernel to
be found there. The cock, evidently, was not feeling very
well, for now and then he assumed a stupid attitude and
cried amain: " What a scandal! "

There, we have walked away from the clearing where it
was warmer than elsewhere, and yet a whole wakeful company
was sitting there. That is, they were not all sitting. For
example, the old bay, that was rummaging a hayrick at
the danger of feeling the whip of coachman Ant6n, could
not sit at all, being a horse; the caterpillar was not sitting
either, but rather lying on its belly ; but we need not be so
particular about words. A small but very serious com-
pany was gathered under a cherry tree: a snail, a dung
beetle, a lizard, and the above-mentioned caterpillar; then
a grasshopper hopped up to them. Nearby stood the old
bay, listening to their conversation with one of his bay ears,
on the inside of which could be seen dark grey hairs. On
the bay sat two flies.

The company discussed things politely, but with sufficient
animation, and, as is proper in such cases, nobody agreed
with his neighbour, for they all valued the independence
of their opinions and characters.

" In my opinion," said the Dung Beetle, " a decent animal

Vsevolod Mikhaylovich Garshin 445

must above all care for his posterity. Life is a labour for
the next generation. He who conscientiously fulfils the
obligations which Nature imposes upon him stands on a
firm foundation. He knows what he has to do, and no
matter what may happen, he is not responsible. Look at
me: who works more than I? Who for whole days at a
time rolls such a heavy ball, a ball that I have made with
great art out of dung, with the great purpose in view of
giving the opportunity to new dung beetles like myself to
grow up ? But then, I do not think there is anybody who
has such a calm conscience, or could with such a pure heart
say: * Yes, I have done all I can and all I ought to do,' as
I will say when these new dung beetles will see daylight.
That 's what I call labour! "

" Don't mention your labour, friend! " said an Ant that
during the Dung Beetle's speech had dragged up an immense
piece of a dry stalk. He stopped for a moment, sat down
on his four hind legs, and with his two front legs wiped off
the sweat from his tired-out face. " I work myself, and
much harder than you! But you work for yourself, or,
what is the same, for your baby beetles; not everybody is
so fortunate as that. Just try dragging logs for the com-
monwealth's stores, as I do! I do not know myself what it
is that makes me work so hard, even in such hot weather.
Nobody will say ' thanks! ' to me for it. We, unlucky work-
ing ants, all work, and what good do we get out of it ? It 's
just our fate! "

" You, Dung Beetle, look at life too dryly, and you, Ant,
too gloomily," protested the Grasshopper. " No, Beetle, I
do like to chirrup and leap about a little, and, really, I have
no scruples about it! Besides, you have not touched the
question that Madam Lizard has put. She asked : * What is
the world?' and you are talking about your dung ball.
Why, that is not even decent. The world is, in my opinion,
a very good thing, if for nothing else, because we find in it
juicy grass, the sun, and the breeze. And it is so big!
Living under these trees, you can't have the slightest con-
ception how big it is. When I am in the field, I sometimes

446 The Nineteenth Century

i

jump up as high as I can, and I assure you I reach an enor-
mous height. I see from way up there that there is no end
to the world."

" That 's right," thoughtfully assented the Bay. " But
all the same none of you will ever see one hundredth part of
what I have seen in my lifetime. What a pity, you can't
understand what a verst is! A verst from here is the village
L,uparevka: I go there every day with a barrel for water.
But they never feed me there. On the other side is Efi-
movka and Kislyakovka; in the latter there is a church with
a belfry. And then comes Svyato-Tr6itskoe, and then Bo-
goyavlensk. In Bogoyavlensk they always give me some
hay, but the hay is not good there. And then there is
Nikolaevsk, — that 's a town, twenty-eight versts from here,
— there the hay is better, and I get oats there; but I do
not like to go to Nikolaevsk : our master generally drives
there, and he tells the coachman to drive fast, and the
coachman lays the whip on us dreadfully. And there are
also Aleksandrovka, Byel6zerka, Kherson, — that 's a town

too But how can you grasp that all! That is the

world ; I must say, not the whole world, but yet a consider-
able part of it."

The Bay grew silent, but his lower lip was quivering as if
whispering something. That was from old age: he was
seventeen years old, and for a horse that is as much as
seventy-seven for a man.

" I do not understand your wise equine words, and, I con-
fess, I am not trying to catch their meaning," said the Snail.
' ' All I want is a burdock : it is now four days I have been
crawling over one, and it is not yet all ended. Beyond
this burdock there is another burdock, and in that burdock
there is, no doubt, another- snail. There you have it all.
There is no need in leaping about, — that 's all empty talk
and bosh ; stay where yotf are, and eat the leaf on which
you are sitting. If it were not for my laziness, I should
have long ago crawled away from you and all your talk : it
gives me only a headache, that 's all."

" Now, I beg your pardon, I don't see why ? " broke in

Vsevolod Mikhaylovich Garshin 447

the Grasshopper. " It is quite enjoyable to chirrup, particu-
larly about pleasant matters, like infinity and so forth. Of
course, there are practical natures who only think of filling
their bellies, like you, or that charming Caterpillar "

' ' Oh, no, leave me alone, I pray, leave me alone, don't touch
me! " exclaimed the Caterpillar pitifully. " I am doing it
all for the future life, only for the future life."

" What future life are you talking about ? " asked the Bay.

" Don't you know that after death I shall be turned into
a butterfly with colored wings ? ' '

The Bay, the Lizard, and the Snail did not know it, but the
insects had some notion of it. And they all kept silent for
a moment, for none of them could say anything sensible
about the future life.

"We ought to bow respectfully to solid convictions,"
chirruped the Grasshopper. "Is there nobody else who
wants to say anything? Maybe you ? " he turned to the Flies.

And the older one answered :

" We can't complain. We have just come out of the
rooms; the lady had put out some fresh jam in some dishes,
and we crawled in under the covers, and had lots to eat.
We are satisfied. Dear mama stuck fast in the jam, but
what 's to be done? She has lived long enough in this
world. But we are satisfied."

" Gentlemen," said the Lizard, " I think that you are all
absolutely right! But, on the other hand "

The Lizard did not finish saying what there was on the
other hand, because she felt that something was jamming
her tail to the ground.

It was coachman Anton who had just awakened and had
come to fetch the Bay. He accidentally stepped with his
monstrous boot on the whole company and smashed it.
Only the flies flew away to lick off their dead, sugared
mama, and the Lizard got away with part of her tail. Ant6n
took the Bay by the forelock and led him out of the garden
to hitch him to the barrel, in order to fetch some water, and
he kept saying: "Get up there, shagtail!" to which the
Bay answered only with a lisp.

44$ The Nineteenth Century

The Lizard was left without a tail. 'T is true, after a
time it grew out again, but it always remained rather
stumpy and blackish. When the Lizard was asked how she
came to injure her tail in that way, she modestly answered:

* * They tore it off, because I had made up my mind to ex-
press my convictions. ' '

And she was absolutely right.

Igndti Nikol£evich Potdpenko. (1856-.)

Potdpenko was born in the Government of Kherson, where his
father was a priest. He himself was educated for the priesthood in
Kherson and Odessa, but he left the Seminary for the university,
and the university again for the Conservatory of Music, from which
he finally graduated in singing. Potdpenko wrote his first sketch in
1881, and became known as an author through his novel, Holy Art,
in which he depicted the literary Bohemia of St. Petersburg. His
reputation was still more confirmed by his later novels, In Active
Service, Common Sense, and His Excellences Secretary. His pro-
ductions are characterised by a healthy optimism and an exquisite
humour, which make them very pleasant reading.

Potdpenko has been translated into English by W. Gaussen, A
Russian Priest (Sunshine Series, No. 86, and Pseudonym Library,
No. 7), London, 1891 ; The GeneraVs Daughter (Sunshine Series,
No. 126, extra), London and New York, 1892 ; Father of Six, also
Occasional Holiday (Unknown Library, No. 26), London, 1893 ; The
Curse of Talent, in Memorials of a Short Life, London, 1895.

A THOUSAND TALENTS

' ' Yes, my friend, I have a great mass of talents, only no-
thing sensible comes of them. Yes, that 's so. That is
quite correct! "

" Well, well, don't say that! "

"Not say it? Why, but I tell you, it is the real
truth!"

"But how? And why?"

"Why? That is the question That is, really, the

question ! ' '

The man who was possessed of such an immense mass of
talents was sitting in a soft armchair, leaning with the whole

Ignati Nikolaevich Potapenko 449

weight of his body against its broad, inclined back. He had
a remarkably happy exterior. He was neither handsome,
nor stately, nor elegant, nor brilliant, — no, his exterior can-
not be defined by any other word than "happy." There
were even half a dozen pits on his face, — traces of former
smallpox; his nose, which had at first been straight and
even, unexpectedly began to turn up at the point ; there was
not the slightest order in his russet beard and moustaches;
his brow looked too large; and he was all as white as milk,
while his face had a shade of copper. At last, his common,
grey eyes were not out of the ordinary, but everything
taken together, his whole face, breathed a serene, frank
sincerity. There are such faces: you look at them, and you
want to be open with them, and to confide some secret, to
unburden your heart to them. He was awkwardly put to-
gether, his movements were halting, and his voice was a little
shrill, but even thus he was sympathetic. In short, he had
a happy exterior. His name was Nikolay Petrovich Bobr6v.

His interlocutor was simply a respectable gentleman, an
attorney in important civil cases, the owner of large apart-
ments, among which was a study, in which they were seated,
with soft, heavy furniture and with bookshelves filled with
a mass of learned and instructive books. That was Kur-
azhev, Sergyey Aleksyeevich, a well-known and esteemed
person in the city. He had but lately made Bobrov's
acquaintance, having met him two or three times, but he
was already in the power of his exterior. Bobr6v had this
day called upon him for the first time, and a conversation
ensued. Kurazhev outside of his practice busied himself
with " social questions," as he called them, and that meant
that he was a live, responsive man who was interested in
life and people, and who loved to ' ' psychologise, ' ' that is,
to rummage in the human soul.

" I '11 tell you why, — because I am a Russian ! Yes, that 's
it," said Bobrov, this time not awaiting his host's question.

"That is incomprehensible. You must make yourself
clear ! ' ' remarked the host, looking at him with the curi-
osity of a professional psychologist, as if he were ready to

VOL. n.— 29.

45° The Nineteenth Century

take the knife, in order to cut open his breast, and take a
look inside his soul.

' ' Make myself clear ? Well, I can make myself clear. I
can and I am prepared to make myself clear, only I shall
have to go way back "

"That is all right. I am ready to follow you into the
depths of time."

* ' Well, it is not exactly the depths of time, but I shall
have to mention my deceased progenitor, and maybe my
grandmother too."

" Or your great-grandfather, if you want to. You have
interested me with your strange statement ' '

1 * My statement is not so strange, if you look at it closely.
I affirm that Russians suffer from their talented natures.
Yes, that 's it. It ought not to be so. They always are
possessed of a huge number of talents, and that is why they
never amount to anything. Yes, I beg your pardon, you

will contradict me later, but now let me I have struck

a good argument, so I can talk clearly and to the point.
One does not always succeed in that. Let us take the sim-
plest kind of an example. I had a cook, — by the way, she
is still in evidence, — and she had a husband, — he is at your
service, too, and his name is Ivan. By the way, you might
have guessed a priori that all cooks have husbands by the
name of Ivan. Now I must tell you how that Ivan has sur-
prised me, simply stunned me, yes, sir! We hired his wife
by herself, and he came to her a week later. He stayed a
while, ate some pumpkin seeds, and went away: that was
noble !

" Some three days later he made his appearance once more,
but this time it was in the morning. He ate his breakfast
with her, washed the dishes, remained for dinner, — all in
proper shape. We took a liking to him ; we sent him on
some errand, I think to the apothecary's, — he started on a
run. Well, in short, to be done with it, two weeks later he
settled in the kitchen, and all that looked so simple and
clear that it never occurred to us to doubt his right to it, and
to send him off. He is there still, but that is another mat-

Jgnati Nikolaevich Potapenko 451

ter. We soon noticed that he never went out to work, but
that he was passing all the time in the kitchen, washing
dishes, blackening boots, running on errands, eating and
sleeping. I once asked him:

:< ' Say, Ivan ! Do you know a trade ? '

' I know all trades ! ' he answered me with the greatest
self-confidence.

" ' How so ? You don't mean all trades! '

' ' 'All, Nikolay Petrovich ! ' He never called me otherwise
but Nikolay Petrovich.

" ' If so, why are you not doing anything ? '

' ' ' Oh, well, no work has turned up I reckon, there is

none for me '

" And you must know he was not lying, he really knew
all trades. My dining table became unglued; I told them to
send for a joiner.

" ' What 's the use in a joiner Nikolay Petr6vich ? I will
fix it for you in first-class shape! ' he informed me, and, in
reality, he fussed with the table about three hours, and
brought it back to life. It is true, it was rather coarse
work: the glue dried up in lumps, where it could be seen,
and the heads of the nails somehow stuck sideways in the
wood, — but it was solid. My wife was about to have the
baby's bathtub fixed. He got hold of it, straightened out
the indented sides, and somehow soldered it, and in addition
painted it inside and outside white. Of course, I must say,
it was not a particularly neat job, but passable enough, — it
could be used. We had to get one of the rooms papered
over, — he again proved himself a master, only in one corner
he hung a strip upside down. Finally, when spring came,
he disappeared, and did not return for three days. When
he did show up, he was all smeared with clay and lime.

" ' Where have you been ? '

" ' I, sir ? I have been doing some masonry.*

" ' What ? You are a mason, too ? '

" ' Why not ? I am a mason, too I know all trades! '

" To make an end with Ivdn, I will tell you that he proved
to be a tailor, too, and with his own hand he made an over-

45 2 The Nineteenth Century

coat for himself. Of course, it was a wretched coat, but it
held together over his back. He finished up by getting
drunk and beating his wife. This Ivan is a Russian, yes,
sir. It is his misfortune to have too much ability, and a
bent for too many things. Thanks to that, he has learned
many things, but nothing properly, and he cannot stop, con-
centrate, and perfect himself at anything. No sooner has
he taken up calcimining, than the mason is awakened in him;
he takes up masonry, and he is at once drawn to the tailor's
trade, and so on. No wonder that this man is all his life
suffering and tearing himself asunder, and that he, from
time to time, balances his accounts by getting drunk and
dealing out blows to his wife. And now it is clear to you
that the misfortune of a Russian is in the many-sidedness of
his talents.

* ' It is quite different with the other nations. Take, for
example, a German. Of course, a German is not naturally
stupid, but he has not the slightest talent. He has but one
talent, — patience, and just see what wonders he performs by
the aid of that modest companion of his. By the aid of
this patience alone, he accomplishes in all spheres of human
activities those results that make us with all our talents
hold up our hands in wonderment. And all that only be-
cause he has but that one talent. He knows that himself,
and he begins to develop it in his swaddling clothes. I
have heard it said that German babies rarely cry. That is
so because they early get used to patience. Now let us
take the English. No doubt, they are a clever nation, but
they have only one talent, and that is their egotism in the
broadest sense of the word, namely their self-respect, their
worship of themselves, their contempt for everything that is
not English, and its exploitation in their favour. That talent
is carried out by them with the strictest consistency in every
thing, — from the most trifling to the most stupendous, — and
makes it possible for them to be the leaders in everything in
the world. Yes, sir.*'

' ' But you have deviated a little. You had intended to
speak of yourself! " the attorney gently interrupted him.

Ignati Nikolaevich Potapenko 453

" No, I did not deviate. I only began that way to come
finally to my case. Now I will pass over to that notable
subject. You must know that my father was not of high
birth; he was of the gentry, but of those who are greatly
impoverished. He was the manager of some count's estate.
He had received no education, but had seen and heard
much, and was a man of practical sense. At eight years of
age I felt a hankering for the violin. Yes, sir, for the violin.
It was not the caprice of a spoilt child, but a real hankering.
I remember how my heart beat at the thought of my father
buying me a violin. Well, he bought me one. The leader
of the church choir showed me the first steps, taught me how
to hold the bow and the fingers, and I began scraping. I
scraped horribly, but something came of it. When I was
ten years old I was taken to town to be sent to the Gym-
nasium. Here I had a patented teacher whose violin was
worth three hundred roubles, if he was not fibbing. My
father paid him in kind : he would bring him cottage cheese,
or a keg of herrings, or pickling cucumbers. I learned
from him my first correct steps, and what do you suppose
came of it all ? Nothing. Many heard me and cried : ' Oh,
what talent!' And really, I did have talent. But you
understand that I ought to have played do-re-mi-fa-sol, and
nothing else, when my aunt visited me.

' ' ' Give me a tune, my darling, and I will give you a silver
rouble for it.'

" I began do-re-mi-fa-sol.

" ' Well, what is that ? That is not even interesting. And
yet they told me that you had some talent. What kind of
talent is that ? I could understand if you played something
that would touch my soul. No, I don't think you have any
talent!'— What, I have no talent? Aunty thinks so.
Wait, I '11 prove you differently! — And I began secretly
from the teacher to learn As I go alone into the street, and
I played it before my aunt; it was so touching that she
wiped her eyes, and said: ' Now, that 's a different matter, —
now I see that you have talent! '

" Then I learned The hussar leaning on his sabre > In a

454 The Nineteenth Century

gloomy autumn evening, and finally, to cap the climax, a
quadrille from Fair Helen. Then I went back to the vil-
lage,— everybody was delighted. My repertoire was popu-
lar. No sooner did anyone call at our house, than father
began to boast:

" ' You ought to hear him play the violin ! Well, K61enka,
give us The hussar!

"I took up an attitude and played The hussar, and by
degrees worked up to Fair Helen. In this manner I gave
concerts all summer, and I forgot everything I had learned
from my teacher, but above all I began to despise do-re-mi-
fa-sol, because that did not bring me any fame. And thus,
sir, I just stuck fast at the Fair Helen, yes, sir! Then,
suddenly, a passion for versifying came over me. Again a
hankering, — what will you do about that ? I began writing
verses 'standing, lying, sitting, walking.' I first did it
secretly, for poetry is a kind of love, — it seeks mystery and
solitude. Here again my accursed vanity ran away with me.
My verses were not bad. I showed them to a schoolmate or
two; they took them up and carried them around, and I be-
came the attested school poet. The director found out about
it, and he asked for my note-book, and approved of it: ' You
have, sir, a divine gift ! ' They came to me for every solemn
occasion: ' Bobr6v, write a poem!' And Bobr6v wrote it
and solemnly recited it. You understand what it led to.
Namely to this : Bobrov began to try acrobatic feats, and to
write in bombastic style, to imitate Derzhavin, and his
youthful poetry became flat. Consequently, nothing came
of that. By that time I was in the seventh form, and my
breast was filled with ecstacies of a different sort. I aban-
doned poetry, and was drawn to serious and clever books.
At first I drank deep from ByeKnski, than Dobrolyubov, and
then Pfsarev fell among us. I graduated from the Gym-
nasium, the university began "

Bobr6v stopped, rose from his seat, and began to walk
across the room, holding his hands behind his back.

"Yes, the university! I had brilliant ability, and what
came of it all? Do you know what? The devil knows

Ignati Nikolaevich Potapenko 455

what ! I was attracted to science, and I wanted to learn the
history of the human race, and its creations, — so I became a
philologist, and began to swallow book after book. One of
the professors directed his attention to me, and had an eye
on me, — but it appeared to me that my country was not in
need of such a science; so I turned about, and began study-
ing Smith, Mill, and Marx A year later, behold, I was

studying the law ! Yes, sir ! The law. And let me tell you
I showed ability in Smith-Mill-Marx too. I do not know
where I got all my eloquence, my indomitable logic, and so
forth. I found mistakes in Mill, so I would say: * Here
and here Mill has made a mistake! ' Yes, sir! We natur-
ally recognised no authorities, except our own. Mill was to
us not a source of wisdom, but only an excuse for showing
the depth of our erudition before the ladies of our circle.

' ' There were some good-looking women among them, let
me tell you. And it is really a wonder I did not get married
then ! Upon my word, it is a wonder. For they nearly all
of them, one must say, paired off, and not just one way or
other, but in legal wedlock. Then half of them went off
with their wives, that is only natural. Though we had all
come together on Mill's platform, yet, everybody knows,
life is not Mill. Yes, sir! And thus I came out hale. I
must suppose that it was so because I was too late. The
respected fellow-members had picked out all the good-looking
ones, there was only left an indifferent lot, while I, after all,
had some esthetic taste. It did not take us long to crush
Mill — that 's it, we crushed him. It suddenly became as
evident as daylight that he was not good for anything, be-
cause the salvation of our country lay not at all in political
economy, but in anatomy and physiology. Well, the country
had to be saved at all cost, and God forbid another man but
myself should save it, — that would have been a personal
insult.

' ' You can guess that the result of it was my going over
to the department of natural sciences. Just think of it! here
I again found myself upon the summit of my calling. I was
glued to a chair, and the microscope was glued to my nose.

456 The Nineteenth Century

I sat there days and nights studying and analysing, and
don't imagine that it was without results. Indeed not! I
even made a discovery : I brought to light, studied, and de-
scribed some peculiar property of the blood corpuscle, yes,
sir! I do not remember what property that was, but it pro-
duced an impression, and they even printed my description
of it in some periodical. But while I was dissecting the
blood corpuscle, a new tendency was ripening within me.
The devil take it, another talent ! Nature had implanted as
many of them within me as I could hold, and each one of
them was dying to show itself, and would not yield to any
other.

" I was drawn from time to time to the paper. I used
to sit by a kerosene lamp in the quiet of the night, and
sketch some scene. At times it was not half bad, and again
it was quite passable. Yes, sir ! Some friend of mine read
it: ' Oh, but you have literary talent, you ought to write! *
Well, pictures of success, reputation, and even fame, the
deuce take it, began to swarm before my eyes. Fame!
Whose head would it not turn ? What affair would one not
throw to the dogs for it ! And so, I was no longer sitting
over the microscope, but passed whole nights producing
artistic literary pictures. That took me from the province
to St. Petersburg, whither I hastened at once to find fame.
My first experiment was a success. They printed it, praised
it, and entered it in the column of the ' promising.' I was
in a hurry, in a terrible hurry, I wanted to pocket all fame
at once, and, of course, I only made botch work of it, and
spoiled matters. My later works did not call forth any
praise, but were honoured with condescending silence. I was
beside myself, began to insist, to work still faster, and to
spoil more and more. When an idea flashed through my
brain, I, instead of putting it away in a quiet corner of my
soul, and living and feeling it over, used to sit down at once
and work it out on paper. Something came out, but not
what it ought to have been. It turned out to be something
pale, something born before its time. Yes, sir ! They would
print it, but more as ballast. And yet, there was talent,

Semen Yakovlevich Nadson 457

there really was, — everybody acknowledged it. But it was
something unfinished, like a phrase half spoken, a picture
half painted, furniture unpolished and unvarnished.

"At last, one more bent ! My old talent for music awoke
in me, and I rushed at once to a musical school. I, the
future composer, was studying harmony and counterpoint,
and again everybody found that I had talent. The world
of sounds swallowed me. I wanted to produce and create,
and before I had reached a fugue, I was writing little songs
and publishing them — Ah, I did not finish here either.
My two songs had success, they were sung at concerts, yes,
sir, and I decided I could write an opera. What is the use
learning when you have talent? That is a good Russian
reason

"And do you know what I am now ? I am a man without
any definite specialty. I am a Russian who has a thousand
talents and who is unfit for any definite business. I can
play on the violin a quadrille from Fair Helen^ I can write
a sonnet, I can discuss Russian literature and history, I
know a few things about Smith, Mill, and Marx, I have some
ideas about the blood corpuscle, I possess a literary style,
can compose a song, — and to sum all up, I am head-scribe
in a bureau, of course, through protection. Am I not the
same Ivan ? We are both Russians. Both he and I can do
everything, and yet are good for nothing. Both of us have
a thousand talents apiece. Well? He is the husband of
my cook, and I — am head-scribe ! The positions are differ-
ent, but the sense of them is the same Yes, sir ! "

Here Bobr6v rolled up a fat cigarette, gave a few puffs at
it, took his cap, and bid his host farewell.

Semen Ydkovlevich Nadson. (1862-1887.)

Nddson's grandfather was a Jew. His father, who had been a
good musician, died when he was but two years old, and he also
lost his mother and brothers early in youth. He was taken care of
by relatives of his, and was sent to the Gymnasium, where he de-
voted himself to literature and music. His first printed poem ap-
peared when he was but fifteen years old. Soon after began to show

The Nineteenth Century

themselves the symptoms of consumption to which he finally suc-
cumbed. He went to the Caucasus, and was later sent to the south
of France. Yet, under the most adverse conditions, he produced a
series of poems of exquisite beauty, and gave promise of rivalling the
best Russian poets. Shortly before his death he was awarded the
Pushkin prize of five hundred roubles.

Pity the stately cypress trees is given in John Pollen's Rhymes
from the Russian, and a few shorter poems, by Mrs. M. S. Walker,
in Free Russia, vol. xiii., No. 5.

MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER!

My friend, my brother, weary, suffering brother, whoever
you be, be not discouraged : let untruth and evil have full
sway upon earth that is watered with tears, let the sacred
ideal be crushed and defamed, let them shed the innocent
blood: — believe me, the time is coming when Baal will
perish, and Love will return upon earth!

Not with a crown of thorns, nor oppressed with chains,
nor with a cross upon his bent shoulders, — he will come into
the world in his strength and splendor, in his hands a bright
torch of glory. There will be in the world neither tears, nor
warring, nor crossless graves, nor serfs, nor cheerless, dead-
ening want, nor the sword, nor pillory.

O my friend ! That bright vision is not a dream, nor an
empty hope: look about you, — everywhere evil oppresses
too much, everywhere night is too dark! The world will
grow tired of torments, will drown in the blood, will get
weary of senseless battles, — and it will raise to Love, to un-
hampered Love its eyes, full of yearning prayer

POETRY

Many years ago she descended from the quiet shades of
Paradise into our world, in a garland of fragrant roses, with
a youthful smile, charming, naked, and proud of her inno-
cent beauty. She brought with her unknown feelings, the
harmony of heaven, and loyalty to dreams, — and her law
was art for art's sake, and her command was to serve beauty.

But at her first steps they tore and trod into the dust her

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 459

superb flowers, — and her beautiful virgin features were
shrouded in a dark cloud of doubts and sorrow; and her
former hymns are no more! The storm's breath carried
tracklessly away her exultant sounds,— and her song breathes
fire of her soul's anguish, and thorns wound her divine brow.

Pity the stately cypress trees;

How freshly green they spring !
Ah ! why amidst their branches, child,

Have you put up your swing ?
Break not a single fragrant bough.

Oh, take thy swing away
To heights where thick acacias bloom;

Mid dusty olives play!
Thence you can see the ocean,

And, as your swing ascends,
Through greening boughs a sunny glimpse

The sea in laughter sends
Of white sails in the distance dim,

Of white gulls far away,
Of white flakes foaming on the sands,

A fringe of snowy spray.
— From J. Pollen's Rhymes from the Russian.

Ant6n Pdvlovich Chekhov. (1860-.)

Chekhov is the son of a former serf. He was born in the city of
Taganr6g, where he went through the Gymnasium. He then at-
tended the Moscow University, where he graduated from the Depart-
ment of Medicine in 1884. He began early to contribute short stories
to various periodicals, and established his reputation in 1887 upon
the appearance of his first collected volume. Of his longer stories
some of the most artistic are The Steppe, Fires, The Memoirs of an
Unknown Man, A Wearisome Story. A pessimistic vein runs
through all his productions, and all his characters seem to be fit sub-
jects for the psychiatrist ; this is especially the case in two of his
dramas, The Mew and Three Sisters, in which there is not one re-
deeming person, and where the very language of the dramatis
personae is nothing but a series of semi-articulated hysterical ejacula-

460 The Nineteenth Century

tions. He is a great favourite with the Russian reading public, but
the foreigner will lay aside his books with great admiration for his
talent and with a shudder at the hopeless condition of Russian
society.

In English has appeared but Philosophy at Home, in Short Stories,
October, 1891.

IN THE COURT-ROOM

In the cinnamou-coloured governmental building of the
county seat of N. , in which the meetings of the Agronomic
Council alternate with those of the Justices of the Peace, of
the Departments of Peasant Affairs, of the Sale of L,iquor,
of Military Conscription, and of many more, a division of
the Circuit Court was one gloomy autumn day assembled to
take up its cases. A local administrator had made a pun in
regard to this cinnamon-coloured building:

" Here is Miss Justice, here is Police, here is Milice, — a
regular Institute for Noble Young Indies. "

But, no doubt to justify the proverb that with seven nurses
a child generally loses an eye, this building produces a
heavy, oppressive sensation in a man who is neither officially
connected nor familiar with it, by its melancholy, barrack-
like appearance, by its age, and by the complete absence of
any and all comforts, either within or without. Even in
bright spring days it looks as if it were covered by a dense
shade, and on clear, moonlit nights, when the trees and the
houses of the citizens are welded into one continuous shadow
and are merged in a quiet sleep, it alone rises awkwardly
and out of place, like a crushing rock, over the modest land-
scape, spoils the general harmony, and stays awake, as
though it could not rid itself of the grievous memory of
past, unforgiven sins. Within, everything is barn-like and
exceedingly unattractive. It is curious to see how easily all
these elegant prosecutors, members, leaders, who at home
will raise a row at the slightest sign of escaping coal gas or
a mere speck on the floor, get used to the buzzing ventilators,
the nauseating smell of smoking candles, and the dirty,
eternally sweating walls.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 461

The session of the Circuit Court began at ten o'clock.
They at once took up the docket, being evidently in a hurry.
The cases were disposed of one after the other, taking up
no more time than a " mass without the singing," so that no
sensible being could have formed a complete, conceptual
picture of that variegated crowd that moved about like a
freshet, of all the motions, speeches, misfortunes, truth,
lies — By two o'clock much was accomplished: two peo-
ple were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment ; one privileged
person was deprived of all his rights and sentenced to im-
prisonment in the jail; one man was found innocent, and
one case was postponed.

Precisely at two o'clock the presiding judge announced
that now was to be taken up the case of ' ' the indictment
found against the peasant Nikolay Kharlamov for the mur-
der of his wife." The composition of the court remained
the same as in the previous case, only the defence was re-
presented by a new individual, — a young, beardless candi-
date for judicial honours, in a coat with bright buttons.

" Bring in the defendant! " ordered the presiding judge.

But the defendant was prepared even before, and he
marched toward the bench. He was a tall, muscular peas-
ant, about fifty-five years of age, completely bald, with a
repulsive, hirsute face, and a long red beard. He was
followed by a small, wizened soldier with a gun.

When almost near the bench, there happened a slight
accident to this guard. He suddenly stumbled and dropped
his gun, but he immediately caught it in its fall, giving his
knee a severe knock with the butt. Either from pain or,
perhaps, from embarrassment at his awkwardness the soldier
blushed crimson.

After the customary questions to the defendant, the re-
arrangement of the jury, the roll-call, and the oath of the
witnesses, — they began the reading of the bill of the indict-
ment. A narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, who had
grown much too thin for his uniform and had a plaster on
his cheek, — he looked like a walking clinic, — read rapidly,
like a sexton, in a subdued, heavy bass, without raising or

462 The Nineteenth Century

lowering his voice, as if afraid to exert his lungs; he was
seconded by the ventilator that kept on buzzing behind the
judge's chair, and from this there resulted a sound that gave
to the stillness of the room a soporific, narcotic character.

The presiding judge, who was not an old man, with an
exceedingly tired face, and near-sighted, was sitting in his
chair without stirring, and holding the palm of his hand near
his brow, as if to keep the sun out of his eyes. During the
buzzing of the ventilator and of the secretary he was think-
ing of something. When the secretary stopped for a second
to draw breath before beginning a new page, he suddenly
started and looked at the audience with his blinking eyes,
then he leaned over the ear of the fellow-judge by his side;
and asked him with a sigh :

" You, Matvyey Petrovich, are stopping at Demyanov's ?"

"Yes, at Demyanov's," answered the member, also
startled.

" Next time I think I shall stop there myself. I declare,
it is impossible to stop at Tipyakov's. There is such a
noise there all night long! They make a racket, they cough,
and the children cry. It 's just impossible to stand it! "

The associate prosecutor, a full-faced, well-fed, dark-com-
plexioned man, in gold spectacles, and with a beautiful,
well-groomed beard, sat immovably, like a statue, and, lean-
ing his cheek on his closed hand, read Byron's Cain. His
eyes were full of ardent attention, and his brows rose admir-
ingly higher and higher. Now and then he threw himself
against the back of his chair, looked for a moment indiffer-
ently ahead of him, and then was once more lost in his
reading.

The counsel for the defence moved the blunt end of his
pencil over the table and, bending his head aside, was medi-
tating something. His youthful face expressed nothing but
unchangeable, cold ennui, such as is to be seen in the faces
of schoolboys and officials who are obliged to sit day after
day in one and the same place and to see all the time the
same faces and the same walls. The forthcoming speech
did not worry him in the least. What kind of a speech is

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 463

it any way ? By order of the authorities he will deliver it
without passion or fire before the jury, according to an old
stereotyped form, feeling all the time that it is colourless and
tiresome, and then he will gallop through mud and rain to
the station, then — to the capital, to get soon another order
for some other county seat, where he will make another
speech It 's tiresome!

The defendant at first coughed nervously into his sleeve
and grew pale, then the quiet, the universal monotony and
the ennui were communicated to him also. He looked with
a dull respect at the uniforms of the judges, at the tired
faces of the jury, and calmly blinked with his eyes. The
judicial surroundings and procedure, waiting for which his
heart had been pining in the prison, now acted upon him
most soothingly. He did not meet here at all vhat he could
have expected. Over him hung the accusation of murder,
and yet he did not meet here any threatening faces, nor
scorning glances, nor loud phrases of revenge, nor any sym-
pathy for his unusual fate ; not one of those who were going
to judge him had turned their long, inquiring glances upon
him. The murky windows, the voice of the secretary, the
pose of the prosecutor,— all that was imbued with chancery
indifference and exhaled a cold breath, as though the mur-
derer were a simple appurtenance of the chancery, or as
though not living men were judging him, but some unseen
machine which God knows who had introduced.

The composed peasant did not know that they were here
as used to the dramas and tragedies of life as one gets used
to deaths in a hospital, and that in this very machine-like
indifference lay the whole terror and the whole hopelessness
of his position. I am sure that if he did not remain silent,
but rose and began to plead and implore for mercy with
tears in his eyes, to repent with fervour, if he died in despair,
— all that would break against their dull nerves and habit
like a billow against a rock.

When the secretary had finished, the presiding judge for
some reason rubbed the table, for a long time blinked at the
defendant, and then asked him, lazily moving his tongue :

464 The Nineteenth Century

" Defendant, do you plead guilty to having killed your
wife on the night of June gth ? ' '

" By no means," answered the defendant, rising and hold-
ing the coat over his breast.

After that the court hurriedly passed over to the examina-
tion of the witnesses. There were examined two women,
five peasants, and the coroner who had held the inquest.
All of them, mud-bespattered and tired from their march
and from the long waiting in the witness room, sad and
gloomy, deposed the same thing. They declared that Khar-
lamov had lived "well" with his wife, just like anybody
else: he used to strike her only when he was intoxicated.
On the Qth of June, about sundown, the woman was found
in the hall with her skull split open; an axe was lying near
her in a pool of blood. When they tried to find Nikoldy, in
order to tell him of the misfortune, he was neither in the
house, nor in the street. They began to run up and down
the village to find him, they went to all the taverns and
cabins, but he could not be found. He had disappeared,
and two days later he came himself to the office, pale, tat-
tered, and trembling in his whole body. He was bound
with ropes and placed in the lockup.

<( Defendant," said the presiding judge to Kharlamov,
1 * can' t you explain to the court where you kept yourself
during the two days after the murder ? "

" I wandered over the field, without eating or drinking."

* * Why did you hide yourself, if you did not kill her ? ' '

" I was frightened. I was afraid I *d be sentenced."

' ' Ah ! Very well, take your seat ! ' '

The last witness was the county physician who had made
the autopsy on the old woman. He communicated to the
court everything he could remember from his notes of the
autopsy and from what he had managed to work out as he
was walking to the court in the morning.

The presiding judge looked with half-closed eyes at his
new shining, black suit, at his dandyish necktie, at his mov-
ing lips, and in his brain somehow stirred by itself the lazy
thought: " Everybody wears now short coats; then why did

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 465

he have made such a long one ? Really, why a long one,
and not a short one ? ' '

Behind the presiding judge was heard the cautious creak
of boots. It was the associate prosecutor who had gone to
the table to take up some document.

"Mikhail Vladmiirovich," he leaned down to the ear of
the presiding judge, " that Koreyski has made a very care-
less inquest. The brother was not examined, the elder was
not examined, and you can't make anything out of the de-
scription of the room."

" What is to be done" what is to be done? " sighed the
presiding judge, throwing himself back into the chair:
' ' This is an endless sandglass ! ' '

' ' By the way, ' ' the associate prosecutor continued to
whisper, " just look down the audience, in the front bench,
the third man from the left, — an actor's phiz. That is the
local financial big-bug. He has a cash capital of nearly five
hundred thousand."

"Yes? His face does n't show it. How would it be,
friend, if we took a recess now ? ' '

" L,et us end this case, and then we shall "

" Very well Well ? " the presiding judge turned his

eyes upon the physician. ' ' So you find that death was in-
stantaneous ? ' '

* ' Yes, on account of a considerable lesion of the brain
matter."

When the physician was through, the presiding judge
looked into space, between the prosecutor and the counsel,
and he proposed :

" Have n't you anything to ask ? "

The associate prosecutor did not turn his eyes away from
Cain, and shook his head negatively, but the counsel moved
unexpectedly and, clearing his throat, asked:

" Tell me, doctor, is it possible to tell the mental condition
of the criminal by the dimension of the wound ? That is, I
want to know whether the amount of the injury gives us a
right to presuppose that the defendant was mentally de-
ranged."

VOL. II.— 30.

466 The Nineteenth Century

The presiding judge raised his sleepy, indifferent eyes
upon the counsel. The prosecutor tore himself away from
his Cain, and looked at the presiding judge. They only
looked, but neither a smile, nor wonderment, nor perplexity,
— nothing was expressed upon their faces.

"Of course," hesitated the physician, "if we take into
consideration the power with which — eh — eh — eh — the crim-
inal strikes a blow However, pardon me, I did not

quite understand your question."

The counsel did not get any answer to his question, nor
did he feel any need of it. It was quite clear to him that
this question had strayed into his head and had escaped
from his tongue only under the influence of the quiet, the
ennui, and the buzzing ventilator. Having dismissed the
physician, the court passed to the examination of the material
instruments of evidence. First they examined the caftan,
on the sleeve of which there was a dark blood spot. Being
asked of the origin of this spot, Kharlamov declared:

" About three days before the death of my wife Penkov
bled his horse. I was there, and as I helped him, I naturally
got some on me."

" But Penk6v has just now declared that he does not re-
member your being present at the bleeding."

" I don't understand that! "

"Sit down!"

They passed to the examination of the axe with which the
woman had been killed.

" That is not my axe," declared the defendant.

"Whose then?"

" I don't know. I had no axe."

"A peasant can't get on a single day without an axe.
Your neighbour Ivdn Timofeich, with whom you fixed the
sleigh, deposed that it is your axe."

" I don't know, only I swear before God," — Kharldmov
stretched his hand with open fingers before him, — * ' I swear
by the true Creator, I don't remember of ever having had
an axe of my own. I once had one like it, only a little
smaller, but my son Prokh6r lost it. Two years before his

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshkov 467

military service he went out to cut some wood, but he was
having a good time with the boys, and he lost it."

"All right, sit down!"

This systematic suspicion and unwillingness to listen to
him no doubt provoked and offended Kharlamov. He
winked, and on his cheeks appeared red spots.

" As before the Lord! " continued he, stretching out his
neck. " If you do not believe, ask my son Prokhor. Prok-
hor, where is my axe?" he suddenly asked with a coarse
voice, abruptly turning to the guard. " Where ? "

That was a shocking moment ! All seemed to have seated

themselves and to have become lower in stature Through

all the heads, as many as there were in the court-room, there
flashed one and the same terrible, impossible thought, the
thought of the probable fatal accident, and not a person
risked or dared to look at the face of the soldier. All wished
not to believe their thought and hoped they had not heard
correctly.

" Defendant, it is not permitted to speak to the guard,"
the judge hastened to say.

Nobody saw the face of the guard and terror invisibly
passed through the court-room. The bailiff softly rose from
his seat and, balancing himself with his arms, walked out of
the room on tiptoes. Half a minute later were heard hollow
steps and sounds, such as are heard during the change of
sentinels.

Everybody raised his head and, trying to look as if no-
thing had happened, they continued the case.

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshkov (pseud. Maksim
G6rki). (1871-.)

Born as the son of an upholsterer, G6rki, by which name Pyesh-
k6v is best known, was brought up by his mother's parents. He had
barely entered school when his grandparents' reverses caused him to
be apprenticed to a shoemaker. After that he tried himself in every
possible capacity — as an engraver, painter of holy images, cook,
hawker of apples, and so forth. In the meanwhile he had an oppor-
tunity to learn to read, and he read any and all books he could

468 The Nineteenth Century

procure. Finally lie fell in with a lawyer at Nizhni-N6vgorod who did
a great deal for his awakening. Then he once more started out on
his wanderings, and in the Caucasus in 1893 wrote his first story,
entitled Mak&r ChMra, for a local paper. The next year he returned
to Nizhni-N6vgorod, and here he met the author Korole"nko, under
whose guidance his literary career began. G6rki draws his vaga-
bonds with a realism that surpasses all previous attempts in that
field. Unlike Uspe*nski, Zlatovrdtski, and the other writers who
have treated similar subjects, he has no bias in any direction whatso-
ever, but depicts elementary passioqs at full play, quite unconcerned
about the results to which they may lead. Not less characteristic
are his pictures of southern scenes, of the steppe, the sea, and the
noisy quay.

In Knglish translation have appeared : Orloff Couple ', translated by
Emily Jakowleff and Dora B. Montefiore, London, 1901 ; Orloff and
his Wife, translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1902 ; Foma
Gordyeeff, translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1901 ; Foma
GordeyeV) translated by H. Bernstein, New York, 1901 ; Twenty-six
and One, New York, 1902 ; Twenty-six Men and a Girl, translated
by B. Jakowleff and D. B. Montefiore, London, 1902; Tales from
Gorky^ translated by N. H. Bain, New York, 1902 ; The Devil, by
L. Wiener, National Magazine, 1901 ; Makar Chudra, by M. Mojay-
sky, Monthly Review, 1901 ; Tchelkache, by Katherine Wylde, Fort-
nightly Review, and Living Age, 1901 ; Song of the Falcon,
Contemporary Review, 1902 ; part of The Awakening of a Con-
science, by L. Wiener, in Garnett's Universal Anthology.

IN THE STEPPE

STORY OF A TRAMP

We left Perek6p in the worst possible mood, — we were as
hungry as wolves and angry with the whole world. For
more than half a day we had unsuccessfully applied all our
talents and efforts to steal or earn something, and when we
at last convinced ourselves that we would fail in both at-
tempts, we decided to move on. Whither? That was a
matter of indifference, as long as we moved on. This was
our unanimous resolution, as we had expressed it to each
other, but we were ready to proceed in every respect upon
the path of our actions upon which we had been travelling

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshkov 469

quite a while, — that had been silently agreed to by everyone
of us and, though it was not spoken of in the hearing of all,
it sparkled clearly in the grim lustre of our hungry eyes.

There were three of us; we had but lately made each
other's acquaintance, having met at Kherson, in a saloon
on the bank of the Dnieper.

One of us had been a soldier of a railroad battalion, later,
as he professed, a roadmaster with one of the Polish rail-
ways; he was a red-haired, muscular man, with cold, grey
eyes; he could speak German, and possessed a very detailed
knowledge of prison life.

People of our class don't like to talk much about their
past, generally having more or less good reasons for not
mentioning it; consequently we all believed each other, at
least outwardly, for inwardly we hardly believed our-
selves.

When our second companion, a small, wizened man with
thin lips, that were all the time skeptically compressed, said
of himself that he had been a student at the Moscow Uni-
versity,— the soldier and I accepted this assertion as a fact.
In reality, it was absolutely the same to us whether he had
ever been a student, a detective, or one of the " Orleans," —
the only important point was that at the time of our ac-
quaintanceship he was our equal: he was starving, he en-
joyed in towns the especial attention of the police, and in
the country the suspicious attitude of the peasants; he hated
both with the hatred of a powerless, persecuted, and hungry
animal, and dreamt of a universal revenge upon everybody
and everything, — in short, by his position amidst the kings
of Nature and the potentates of life, and by his inclinations,
he was a bird of our feather.

Misfortune is the best cement to unite even the most con-
tradictory natures, and we were all convinced of our right
to regard ourselves as unfortunates.

I was the third. Out of modesty, which has been my
characteristic ever since my nails were grown, I will not say
a word about my worth, and, not wishing to appear naive to
you, I will keep silent about my faults. However, to furnish

47° The Nineteenth Century

you material for my characterisation, I will say that I always
regarded myself better than others, and that I still success-
fully maintain this opinion.

So we left Perekop and moved on, depending for that day
upon the shepherds, whom one may always ask for a piece of
bread and who never refuse it to pedestrians.

I walked by the side of the soldier, the "student " marched
behind us. Over his shoulders hung something that some-
what reminded of a frock-coat; on his sharp-pointed, angular
and clean-shaven head rested the remnant of a broad-brimmed
hat ; grey trowsers with many-coloured patches fitted tightly
to his thin legs, and to the soles of his feet he had fastened
parts of a bootleg, which he had picked up on his way ; he
held them in place by means of ropes which he had wound
out of the lining of his costume, and this affair he called
sandals; he marched silently, raising a great deal of dust
and blinking with his small greenish eyes. The soldier was
dressed in a red fustian shirt which, to use his words, he
had by his own hand obtained at Kherson ; over his shirt
there was a warm cotton jacket, and his head was adorned
by a soldier's cap of indefinite colour, which was poised, ac-
cording to the military rule, " with a bend of the upper circle
over the right brow ' ' ; about his legs flapped broad Ukrainian
carter's pantaloons. He was barefooted.

I was similarly dressed, and also barefooted.

We marched on, and all about us extended the steppe with
a heroic sweep and, being covered with the blue, burning
cupola of a cloudless summer sky, lay before us like an enor-
mous black dish. The grey, dusty road cut a broad swath
across it, and burned our feet. Here and there we saw bristly
stretches of harvested grainfields that bore a striking re-
semblance to the long-neglected cheeks of the soldier.

The soldier walked and sang with a hoarse voice:

" And we sing and praise Thy holy Sunday "

During his military service he had been something like a
sexton in the battalion church, and he knew an endless
number of hymns and chants, which knowledge he misused
every time our conversation did not flow exactly right.

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshk6v 471

Ahead of us, on the horizon, rose some forms of soft con-
tours and gentle shades, from lilac to light pink.

" That 's evidently the Crimean range," said the student
dryly.

" Mountains ?" exclaimed the soldier. "It 's mighty
early, my friend, you see them. Those are clouds, just
clouds. You see what they look like? Just like cranberry
sauce with milk."

I remarked that it would be exceedingly agreeable if the
clouds really consisted of cranberry sauce. This at once
roused our hunger, — the great question of the day.

" The devil! " cursed the soldier, and spit out. " If only

a single living soul came our way ! Not a person We'll

have to lick our own paws, like bears in winter."

' * I said we ought to keep near inhabited places, ' ' remarked
the " student," moralising.

"You said!" said the soldier angrily. "That 's why
you are a learned man, just to be a-talking. Where do you
expect to find inhabited places here? The devil knows
where they are ! ' '

The ' ' student ' ' grew silent and compressed his lips. The
sun was going down, and the clouds in the horizon displayed
a variety of intangible colours. The air smelled of land and
salt.

This dry and appetising odour only increased our hunger.

There was a gnawing sensation in our stomachs. It was
a strange and disagreeable sensation : it felt as though the
sap were flowing out of all the muscles of the body, as though
it evaporated, and the muscles lost their vital flexibility.
A sensation of stinging dryness filled the cavity of the mouth
and the throat; the head was dizzy, and dark spots arose
and flitted before the eyes. At times they assumed the form
of steaming pieces of meat, of big slices of bread ; reminis-
cence furnished these "visions of the past, silent visions"
with their appropriate aromas, and then it felt as though a
knife were turning around in the stomach.

We kept on marching, communicating to each other the
description of our sensations and being on a sharp lookout

472 The Nineteenth Century

on both sides, — hoping to discover somewhere a flock of
sheep, or to hear the sharp creaking of a Tartar's cart taking
fruit to an Armenian market.

But the steppe was deserted and speechless.

On the previous day we had eaten between us four pounds
of rye bread and some five melons, after having marched
about forty versts, — there was a discrepancy between assets
and liabilities, — and, having fallen asleep on the market
place of Perekop, we awoke from hunger.

The " student" had justly advised us not to lie down to
sleep, but to go to work in the night, — it is not considered
proper in decent society to speak aloud of the plans for tres-
passing on private property, and so I shall keep silent. I
only want to be truthful, and not vulgar, as regards my own
interests. I know that people are getting more and more
kind-hearted in these our highly cultured days and that
when they take their neighbour by the throat with the evi-
dent purpose of choking him, they try to do so with the ut-
most politeness and with the observance of all the proprieties,
suited to the case. The experience of my own throat com-
pels me to notice this progress of manners, and I affirm
with a pleasant feeling of conviction that everything in this
world is being developed and perfected. This remarkable
progress is, in particular, sufficiently proved by the annual
increase in prisons, saloons, and ' * houses of toleration. ' '

So, swallowing our hungry spittle and attempting by a
friendly conversation to suppress the pain in our stomachs,
we marched across the deserted and speechless steppe,
marched in the blood-red rays of the declining sun, full of a
dim hope of something. In front of us, the sun was going
down, gently descending into the soft clouds, which were
lavishly painted by its rays, and behind us and at our sides
a bluish mist, rising from the steppe towards heaven, nar-
rowed down the inhospitable horizon around us.

" Friends, collect material for a fire," said the soldier, as
he lifted a stick by the wayside. ' ' We will have to sleep
out on the steppe, and there is dew falling. Pick up dung
chips and all kinds of dry stalks ! ' '

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshkov 473

We scattered on both sides of the road and began to col-
lect dry weeds and everything else that would burn. Every
time I had to bend down, a powerful desire to fall down
upon the ground took possession of my body, a desire to lie
immovably and eat the rich, black earth, to eat a great deal
of it, to exhaustion, and then to fall asleep, even if it were
to fall asleep for ever, as long as there would be something
to eat, and I could chew and feel the thick, warm mass
slowly passing from the mouth over the dried-up oesophagus
into the hungry and compressed stomach that was burning
with the desire of sucking something in.

''If we could only find some roots," sighed the soldier.
" There are some edible roots."

But there were no roots whatsoever in the black, ploughed -
up earth. The southern night came upon us rapidly, and
the last sunbeam had not yet gone out, when the stars began
to glisten in the dark-blue vault, and the dark shadows grew
thicker around us, narrowing down the endless extent of the
steppe that held us.

"Friends," said the "student" half-aloud, "there is a
man lying to the left of us."

"A man?" doubted the soldier. "Why should he be
lying there ? ' '

" Go and ask him. No doubt, he has some bread, or he
would not be camping out in the steppe," explained the
" student." The soldier looked aside, where the man was
lying, and, spitting out assertively, he said:

1 ' Let us go to him ! ' '

Only the "student's" sharp green eyes could have dis-
covered that the dark mass that rose some three hundred and
fifty feet to the left of the road was a man. We started in
that direction, swiftly striding over clods of earth, and we
felt the pang of hunger getting more acute in the germinat-
ing hope of finding something to eat. We were near the
place, but the man did not move.

" Maybe that is not a man," gloomily said the soldier,
giving expression to our common thought.

But our doubt was immediately dispersed, for the mass on

474 The Nineteenth Century

the ground moved, raised itself, and we saw that it was a
real, live man who was standing on his knees and stretching
out his hands towards us.

He spoke to us with a dull and trembling voice:

" Not a step nearer, or I '11 shoot! "

A dry, short click was heard in the murky air.

We stopped as commanded and kept silent for a few
seconds, being dazed by such an inhospitable reception.

" What a r-rascal! " muttered the soldier deliberately.

" Yes," thoughtfully said the " student." " He wanders
about with a revolver; evidently, the fish is full of spawn."

" Oh there! " called out the soldier, having made up his
mind for something.

The man did not change his position and kept silent.

1 * Oh there ! We will not touch you. Give us only some
bread, if you have any! For Christ's sake, give us some,
friend ! Damn you, anathema ! ' '

The last words the soldier spoke under his breath.

The man kept silent.

" Do you hear ? " again spoke the soldier, with a tremor
of anger and despair. ' * Give us some bread, I say ! We
will not come near you. Throw some to us! "

" All right! " said the man abruptly.

He might have said to us: '* My dear brethren!" and
if he had poured all his holiest and purest sentiments into
these three Christian words, they would not have roused us
so and would not have made us so human as this dull and
short:

"All right!"

" Don't fear us, good man! " said the soldier softly and
with a sweet smile upon his face, though the man could not
see his smile, for he was separated from us by at least twenty
paces.

* ' We 're peaceable people, and are walking from Russia
into the Kuban country; we have spent our pennies on the
way, and have eaten up our provisions, and have n't had a
bite for two days."

" Catch it," said the good man, flourishing something in

Aleksy£y Maksimovich Pyeshkov 475

the air. A black piece flashed by and fell not far from us on
the ploughed field. The ' ' student ' ' threw himself upon it.

" Catch again ! Once more! That 's all I have! "

When the ' ' student ' ' collected this original gift, it ap-
peared that we had about four pounds of stale wheat bread.
It was all rolled in dirt and very stale. The first did not de-
tain our attention, the second pleased us very much. Stale
bread is more nourishing than fresh bread, because there is
less moisture in it.

1 ' Here, and here, and here ! ' ' the soldier doled out the
shares with concentrated attention. "Hold on, the pieces
are n't equal! We '11 have to pinch off a piece of yours,
learned man, or he will have too little."

The * ' student ' ' submitted without grumbling to the
diminution of his piece of bread by some five ounces; I took
it and put it in my mouth.

I began to chew it, to chew it slowly, barely repressing
the cramp-like motion of my jaws that were ready to crush
stones. It gave me an acute pleasure to feel the palpitating
cramps of my alimentary canal, and to satisfy it slowly and
by small drops. Swallow after swallow, warm and inex-
pressibly, incomprehensibly appetising, penetrated into the
burning stomach and seemed immediately to be transformed
into blood and brain. Joy, such a strange, quiet, and vivi-
fying joy, warmed my heart in the measure as my stomach
filled up, and my general condition was not unlike a half-
sleeping. I forgot those accursed days of my chronic hunger ;
I forgot my companions, being all merged in the enjoyment
by the sensations through which I then passed.

But when I threw from my palm the last crumbs into my
mouth, I felt that I was deathly hungry.

" That accursed one has some bacon or some meat left,"
grumbled the soldier, sitting against me on the ground and
rubbing his belly with his hands.

' ' No doubt, for the bread smelled of meat. Yes, and he
may have some bread left, too," said the "student" and
softly added:

* * If it were not for the revolver ' '

476 The Nineteenth Century

" Who is he anyway ? "

" Evidently, one of our kind."

" A dog! " declared the soldier.

We were sitting closely together and kept looking askance
at the place where our benefactor was sitting with his re-
volver. Not a sound, nor a sign of life proceeded from him.

Night was gathering around us her dark powers. There
was a dead silence in the steppe, and we could hear each
other's breathing. Now and then the melancholy whistling
of a gopher reached our ears. The stars — living flowers of
heaven — gleamed above us. We wanted to eat.

I say it proudly, — I was not worse nor better than my
casual companions in that somewhat strange night. I pro-
posed to them that we should get up and make for that man.
We would not touch him, but we would eat up anything he
might have. He would shoot, — let him! He could hit but
one of us three, if he hit us at all ; and even if he did, a bul-
let from a revolver would hardly kill.

" Let us go! " said the soldier, jumping to his feet.

The " student " was slower in rising.

We started, we almost ran. The " student " kept towards
one side, and behind us.

* ' Partner ! ' * cried the soldier to him reproachfully.

We were met with a dull grumbling and a sharp sound of a
clicking hammer. There was a flash of fire, and the dry
sound of a shot was heard.

"Missed!" joyfully exclaimed the soldier, reaching the
man with one bound. " Well, devil, I '11 give it to you
now ! ' '

The " student " made a rush for his wallet.

The devil fell from his knees upon his back and, stretch-
ing out his hands, began to snore.

' ' What the deuce ! ' ' wondered the soldier, who had already
raised his foot to give the man a kick. "Is it possible he
has filled himself up with lead ? Oh, there, get up ! Say,
did you kill yourself, eh ? "

"There is some bread, and some cakes, and bread — lots
of it, friends! " was heard the jubilant voice of the "student."

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshk6v 477

" Well, the deuce take you, go to! Let us eat, friends! "
cried the soldier. I took the revolver out of the hands of
the man, who had stopped snoring and lay motionless. One
barrel had a cartridge in it.

We ate again, and we ate in silence. The man lay silent,
without moving a limb. We paid no attention to him.

"Is it really so, my friends, that you did it all for the
bread only ? ' ' suddenly was heard a hoarse and quivering
voice.

We all shuddered. The ' * student ' ' even started up and,
bending to the ground, began to cough.

The soldier finished chewing and began cursing.

! ' You, soul of a dog, may you burst like a dry plank !
What did you want us to do ? Take off your hide ? What
good would it do us ? You stupid snout, damned soul ! I
declare! Carrying arms, and shooting at people! You
anathema! "

He kept on cursing and eating, which latter fact much
diminished the expressiveness and strength of his curses.

" Just wait, when we are through eating, we '11 square up
with you," ominously threatened the " student."

Then were heard, in the quiet of the night, howling sobs
that frightened us.

" Friends, how could I know? I fired because I was
afraid. I am on my way from New Afon to the Govern-
ment of Orel. O Lord ! The fever is undoing me since the
sun went down ! It was the fever that made me leave Afon

I was doing some carpentering there I am a

carpenter I have at home a wife and two daughters

—have n't seen them these three years Friends! Eat

everything ' '

" We will, you need n't ask us! " said the "student."

" My Lord! If I had known that you were good, peace-
able people, do you suppose I would have fired at you?
You see, my friends, it 's the steppe, and night — am I to be
blamed, eh?"

As he said that, he wept, or to speak more correctly,
emitted a quivering, timorous howl.

47$ The Nineteenth Century

' ' Hear him whine ! ' ' contemptuously said the soldier.

1 ' He must have money about him, ' ' declared the
"student."

The soldier blinked, looked at him, and smiled.

" You are a good guesser. Say: let us make a fire, and
go to sleep ! ' '

" And he ? " inquired the " student."

"The deuce take him! What do you want us to do —
roast him ? ' '

" We ought to! " the " student " shook his sharp-pointed
head.

We went for the material which we had been gathering
and which we had thrown away where the carpenter had
stopped us with his threatening call; we brought it back,
and soon we were sitting around a fire. It glowed softly in
the windless night and illuminated a small space which we
were occupying. We were feeling sleepy, though we could
have supped again.

" Friends! " cried out the carpenter. He was lying some
three paces from us, and at times it appeared to me that he
was muttering something.

"Well?" said the soldier.

* ' May I move up to you, to the fire ? My death is upon
me, my bones are aching. Lord! I don't think I '11 reach
home."

" Crawl up," decided the " student."

The carpenter slowly crawled along the ground towards
the fire, as if fearing to lose an arm or leg. He was a tall
and dreadfully dried up man : everything hung dreadfully
loose about him, and his large dim eyes reflected the pain
that was consuming him. His wry face was bony and had
even in the light of the fire a kind of a yellowish earthy,
deathly color. He was all in a tremble and provoked a
contemptuous pity. He stretched out to the fire his long,
lean hands, and rubbed his bony fingers, but their joints
bent lazily and slowly. In short, he was a horrible sight.

1 ' How is it you are in such a fix, and afoot ? Are you so
stingy ? " gloomily asked the soldier.

Aleksy£y Maksimovich Pyeshkov 479

" They advised me not to go by sea, but to walk through
the Crimea, on account of the air. But I can't walk, I am
dying, brothers! I '11 die alone in the steppe — the birds

will peck at me, and nobody will know me My wife

and daughters will be waiting I have written to them

—but the rains of the steppe will be bleaching my bones.
My I,ord, my Lord ! ' '

He whined with the melancholy whine of a wounded wolf.

" The devil," cried out the soldier as he rose to his feet.
" Don't howl so ? Why don't you give us people any rest ?
Are you dying ? All right, die, but keep quiet. Who wants
you ? Shut up ! ' '

" Kick him in the pate! " proposed the " student."'

" Let us lie down to sleep," said I. " And you, if you
want to be by the fire, don't howl at least."

' ' Did you hear ? ' ' sternly said the soldier. "Well, make a
note of it. Do you think we are going to pity you and look
after you, for hurling bread at us, and firing on us ? You
mean devil ! Others pah ' '

The soldier grew silent and stretched himself out on the
ground.

The " student" had lain down before. I lay down my-
self. The frightened carpenter was all bent into a ball and
moved to the fire, and looked at it fixedly. I lay to the
right of him and I could hear his teeth chatter. The
* * student ' ' was to the left of him and, it seemed, fell at once
asleep, having rolled up into a ball. The soldier put his
hands under his head and lay, face upwards, and looked at
the sky.

" What a night! Lots of stars — warmth " he turned

to me after a time.

"What a sky! It 's a coverlet, not a sky. I do love
this life of a tramp, my friend. You suffer cold and hunger,
but it 's a mighty free life. There is no superior over you
— you are master of your life. You may chew off your
head, and nobody will say a word to you. It 's fine. I
have starved enough these days, and have had enough cause
for anger, but now I am lying and looking at the sky. The

480 The Nineteenth Century

stars are twinkling to me, as if to say : ' Never mind, La-
ktitin, wander about over the earth and submit to nobody. '

Yes And my heart feels light Oh, there, what do

they call you ? Oh, there, carpenter! Don't be angry with
me, and have no fear! As to our having eaten up your
bread, that 's nothing. You had some bread, and we had

none, so we ate up yours But you are a savage, you

fire off guns. Don't you know that bullets may harm peo-
ple ? It made me dreadfully mad, and if you had not fallen
down, I would have thrashed you, my friend, for your im-
pudence. But as for the bread, you will reach Perek6p to-
morrow, and so you will buy some — I know you have money
How long is it since you caught the ague ? "

The bass of the soldier and the quivering voice of the sick
carpenter resounded for quite a while in my ears. Dark,
almost black night descended more and more upon the earth,
and the fresh, aromatic air flowed into my breast.

From the fire came an even light and vivifying warmth.
The eyes became gluey, and before them was borne, through
the drowsiness, something soothing and purifying.

' ' Get up ! Lively there ! Let us go ! "

I opened my eyes with a feeling of terror and swiftly
jumped to my feet, being helped by the soldier, who jerked
me up from the ground.

' ' Lively there ! Move on ! ' '

His face was stern and agitated. I looked around me.
The sun was rising, and its rose-coloured beam lay upon the
immovable and blue face of the carpenter. His mouth was
open, his eyes stood far out of their sockets and stared with
a glassy glance, expressive of terror. His dress was all torn
over his chest, and he lay in an unnaturally contorted posi-
tion. The " student " was gone.

" Well, what are you tarrying for ? I told you to go! "
said the soldier persuasively, pulling me all the time by my
arm.

"Is he dead?" asked I, shuddering from the morning
freshness.

Aleksyey Maksimovich Pyeshkov 481

" Of course. You would die, too, if they choked you,"
explained the soldier.

" What, did the ' student' ? " cried I.

"Well, who else? Maybe, you? Or I? Yes. There

you have a learned man He got away with the man,

and left his companions in a nice fix. If I had known that
yesterday, I would have killed that * student.' I would
have killed him with one stroke. I would have banged his
temple with my fist, and there would have been a villain less
in the world. Do you understand what he did ? Now we
are compelled to walk in such a way that not a soul shall
see us in the steppe. Do you understand ? Because they
will find the carpenter to-day, and they will discover that he
had been choked to death and robbed. And they will be on
the lookout for fellows of our kind: Where do you come
from, and where did you pass your night ? Yes, and they

will catch us Though we have n't a thing of his — yes,

I have his revolver in my bosom. It 's a nice fix we are
in!"

" Throw it away," I advised the soldier.

" Throw it away," said he, thoughtfully. " It 's worth
something. And then, maybe they will not catch us. No,
I won't throw it away. Who knows that the carpenter had
a gun ? I won't throw it away. It 's worth three roubles.
There is a bullet in it. I tell you, I would like to send it
a-flying into the ear of our dear companion ! I wonder how
much money that dog got away with! Anathema! "

" Poor daughters of the carpenter," said I.

"The daughters? What daughters? Oh, his. Well,
they '11 grow up, and they won't marry us, so there is no
use talking about them. Come, friend, let us be off.
Where shall we go ? "

' ' I don' t know Anywhere. ' '

" I don't know either, and I know that it makes no differ-
ence. Come, let us to the right, there must be the sea. ' '

We went to the right.

I turned back. Far away from us rose a dark mound in
the steppe, and the sun shone over it.

VOL. II.— 31.

482 The Nineteenth Century

' ' Are you trying to see if he has arisen from the dead ?
Don't be afraid, he won't be up after us. The learned fellow
is evidently a man of experience, he has done his job thor-
oughly. Well, he 's a fine partner! He has put us in a
nice hole ! Friend ! People are getting worse from year to
year, they are getting worse! " said the soldier mournfully.

The deserted and speechless steppe, bathed by the bright
morning sun and mingling in the horizon with the sky, was
unfolded around us in such a bright, gentle, and abundant
light that every black and unrighteous deed seemed impos-
sible amidst the great extent of this free plain that was
covered by the blue cupola of the sky.

" I feel like having something to eat, friend! " said my
companion, as he rolled himself a cigarette out of coarse
tobacco.

" What shall we eat to-day, and where and how ? "

It was a problem !

Having told me this, the storyteller, who was my neigh-
bour in the hospital, ended his narrative.

" That 's all. The soldier and I got to be good friends,
and we walked together to the Kara territory. He was a
good and very experienced fellow, a typical barefoot tramp.
I respected him. We walked together to Asia Minor, and
then I lost track of him."

' * Do you ever think of the carpenter ? ' ' asked I.

" As you see, or, as you heard."

"Well, and—?"

He laughed.

1 * What am I to feel ? It was not my fault what happened
to him, not any more than it is your fault what has happened
to me. Nobody is to be blamed for anything, because we
are all alike— beasts."

Dmitri Sergy6evich Merezhk6vski. (1865-.)

Merezbk6vski was born in 1865 and graduated from the university
in 1886. He began early to write poetry, but met with no success. A
novel in verse, Vyera, which he wrote in 1890, however, produced a

Dmitri Sergyeevich Merezhkovski 483

favourable impression. Since then Merezhk6vski has devoted him-
self more especially to prose. He is opposed to the prevailing
democratism in literature, and preaches a return to the ideal of
Pushkin. He has evolved an unusually fine style for Russian litera-
ture, but his conceptions are rather fantastic, and not always cohe-
rent. His chief interest lies in the illustration of the struggle of two
worlds, the pagan and the Christian. This idea runs through all his
critical essays, in which he deplores the democratic spirit in litera-
ture since G6gol, and through his trilogy of novels, of which the first
deals with Julian the Apostate, the second with Leonardo da Vinci,
and the third is to treat of Peter the Great.

In English translation have appeared : The Death of the Gods, The
Resurrection of the Gods, and Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, the
Forerunner, translated by H. French, I/ondon, 1902, the latter also
New York, 1902 ; Julian the Apostate, Philadelphia, 1902 ; Tolstoi as
Man and Artist, with Essay on Dostoievski, New York, 1902.

FROM AN KvSSAY ON "PUSHKIN"

Not by sudden outbursts and by jerks, but premise after
premise, step by step, unavoidably and with dialectic pre-
cision, by evolving the one sphere of Pushkin's harmony,
by sacrificing and killing the other, has Russian literature
at last reached that one-sidedness of L,ev Tolst6y, so suicidal
for every artistic development.

Gogol, the nearest of Pushkin's disciples, was the first to
understand and express the meaning of Pushkin for Russia,
as no one after him has been able to do. In his best crea-
tions, in the Revizdr and in the Dead Souls, Gogol carried
out the plans with which his teacher had inspired him. It
is difficult to find a case of closer adaptation in the history
of any literature. Gogol drew directly from Pushkin, that
deep and pure source of Russian harmony. Well ? Did the
disciple execute the injunction of his teacher? Gogol was
the first who unconsciously and involuntarily betrayed
Pushkin; he was the first who became a victim of the great
disorganisation, which was later more and more to take
possession of Russian poetry ; he was the first to experience
the attacks of the all-devouring, sickly mysticism, which
was to undermine also the creative powers of others than
himself.

484 The Nineteenth Century

It is a tragic fact in Russian literature that in departing
with every step more and more from Pushkin, that in de-
stroying the most precious creation of his spirit, — the co-or-
dination and equipoise of two worlds, — it at the same time has
regarded itself as the true guardian of Pushkin's legacies.
Great men have no more dangerous enemies than their
nearest disciples, — those who recline upon their breast, for
no one can, loving and adoring, with such innocent cunning
distort the real image of their teacher.

Turgenev and Gonchar6v made conscientious attempts to
overcome the incipient discord within them, the ill-omened
dissonance of L,e*rmontov and G6gol, to return to Pushkin's
objective calm and equipoise. If not with their hearts, they
understood with their minds the heroic deed of Peter the
Great, remaining strangers to the Slavophile pride of Dos-
toevski, and they consciously, like Pushkin, bowed before
the majesty of Western culture. Turgenev appears in a
certain measure as the legal heir of Pushkin's harmony, both
on account of the perfect clearness of the artistic architecture
and the gentle grace of language.

But all that resemblance, all that harmony, is superficial
and deceptive. Neither Turgenev nor Goncharov succeeded
in the attempt to conquer the approaching disorganisation,
to return to Pushkin. A feeling of great fatigue and satiety
with all cultural forms, Schopenhauer's Buddhistic nirvana,
Flaubert's artistic nihilism, were much nearer to Turgenev' s
heart than Pushkin's heroic wisdom. In Turgenev' s ex-
ceedingly soft, feminine, and pliable language there is no
longer Pushkin's manliness, his sturdy strength and sim-
plicity. In Turgenev' s bewitching melody you continually
hear a penetrating, plaintive tone, like the sound of a cracked
bell, — a sign of a deepening spiritual discord, — the terror of
life, the terror of death, which lyev Tolstoy will later carry
to appalling limits.

Turgenev has created an endless gallery of what in his
opinion are real Russian heroes, that is, heroes of weakness,
cripples, unsuccessful men. He has surrounded his Living
Relics with an aureole of the same Galilean poetry which

Dmitri Sergydevich Merezhkovski 485

surrounds the images of Tatyana, Tazit, the old gipsy. He
has reached the highest degree of his accessible inspiration,
by pointing out the superiority of weakness over strength,
of the little man over the great, and the humble over the
proud, of Don Quixote's simple-minded insanity over Ham-
let's evil wisdom. The only strong Russian in Turgenev is
the nihilist Bazarov. Of course, the author of Fathers and
Sons was enough of an objective artist to treat his hero with-
out anger or bias, but he nevertheless was afraid of him and
could not forgive him his strength. The poet seemed to
say, as he pointed to Bazarov, without noticing that he was
not at all a hero, but just such an abortion, just such an un-
successful man, as the rest of his superfluous people, who
created nothing and who was doomed to ruin : ' ' You wanted
to see a strong Russian, — here is a strong man! See for
yourselves what narrowness and limitation of will-power,
which is directed to destruction ! What coarseness and awk-
wardness before the tender mystery of love! What in-
significance before the majesty of death ! That is what your
heroes, your Russian strong men are like ! Oh, do you not
a hundred times prefer my weak, superfluous, little, gentle
heroes of Russian wretchedness, indolence, and carelessness,
my magnanimous unsuccessful men and Don Quixotes ? ' '

If a foreigner were to believe Gogol, Turgenev, and Gon-
char6v, the Russian nation must represent itself to him as
unique in history, as denying the very essence of heroic will.
If the depth of the Russian spirit were exhausted by only
Christian meekness, only self-sacrifice, only the poetry of the
pariahs, the humbled, and the offended, — whence, then,
comes that " Divine storm," that blissful and terrifying
grandeur, that superabundance of success, will, and merri-
ment, that are felt in Peter and in Pushkin ? How could
arise these two demoniac phenomena of infinite beauty and
infinite love in the country of Buddhistic nihilism and
wretchedness, in the country of Dead Souls and Living
Relics in the Siloam pool of the maimed and the halt ? Or
are Peter and Pushkin not our own, not Russians?

Goncharov has gone even farther on this dangerous path

486 The Nineteenth Century

The critics saw in Oblomov a satire, a moral. But Gon-
charov's novel is more venomous and more terrible than any
satire. For the poet himself there is in that all-embracing
artistic synthesis of Russian helplessness and Russian " do-
nothingness," neither praise, nor blame, but there is only a
full justice, the representation of Russian reality in all its
terror and in all its beauty. In his best moments Oblomov,
a bookish dreamer who with the childlike serenity and azure
chastity of his infinitely deep and simple heart is unfit for too
coarse a human existence, is surrounded with the same
aureole of quiet poetry, as the Living Relics of Turge-
nev. Goncharov would, perhaps, have liked to be unjust to
Obl6mov, but he could not, because he loved him; he, no
doubt, intended to be just to Stolz, but he could not, be-
cause he secretly hated him. The German hero (he did not
try to represent a Russian hero, so unnatural did such a
phenomenon seem to him) came out dead, cold, and formless.
Art reveals the secret feeling which the poet dares not ex-
press: is not the resignation from stern life, the primitive
simplicity, the wise inactivity of the gentle hero of Russian
indolence a thousand times more noble than the prosaic
bustle of the hero of German precision ? From Mahomet,
Napoleon, Byron, the Bronze Rider, to a puny, hoarding,
bourgeois German, and to a gawky seminarist, a provincial
tempting demon, Mark Volokhov, — what a sad metamor-
phosis, what a fall of the Pushkin demigod !

But that is not yet the lowest step. Gogol, Turgenev, and
Goncharov appear as writers full of objective equipoise,
health, and harmony in comparison with Dostoevski and
I/ev Tolstoy. The emaciated and half -dead Russian heroes,
the Russian strong men, Bazarov and Mark Volokh6v, come
once more to life in the person of Rask61nikov, Ivan Kara-
mdzov, in the monstrous visions of the Devils, in order to
undergo the last degrading punishment, the most refined,
hellish torture, — in the terrible hands of that demon of
wretchedness and torment, the great inquisitor Dostoevski.

How much stronger and more truthful he was than Tur-
ge"nev and Goncharov! Dostoevski did not hide his dis-

Dmitri Sergyeevich Merezhkovski 487

sonance, his discord, did not deceive himself, nor the reader,
did not make vain attempts to re-establish the disturbed
equilibrium, — the harmony of Pushkin's form. And yet he
valued and understood this harmony with more penetration
than Turgenev and Goncharov, — he loved Pushkin, as the
most inaccessible, the most opposite to his nature, just as
the mortally ill man values health, — he loved him, but no
longer strove after that harmony.

The author of Brothers Karamdzov has maimed and vio-
lated the artistic form of the epos, has with unheard-of
audacity transformed it into a terrible instrument of psycho-
logical torture. It is hard to believe that the language that
still possesses such vernal freshness and chaste serenity in
Pushkin has been so transformed as to serve for the repre-
sentation of the horrible nightmares and gloomy, fiery
visions of Dostoevski.

Dostoevski was more consistent than Turgenev and Gon-
charov in even another respect: he did not hide his im-
measurable Slavophile pride, — he did not ogle the civilisation
of the West. Hellenic beauty was to him Sodom, and Ro-
man force the kingdom of the Antichrist. What could
meek, youthful, God-harbouring Russia learn from the
haughty, decrepit, Godless West? The Russian nation is
not to strive after the ideal of the West, that is, after uni-
versal paganism, but the West is to strive after the ideal of
the Russian nation, that is, after universal Christianity.

Nevertheless, as an artist he is nearer to Pushkin than
Turgenev and Gonchar6v. He is the only one of the Rus-
sian authors who consciously reproduces the struggle of
two worlds. It is even possible that his dualism is deeper
than Pushkin's. Yet it is withal, to its very depths, a dis-
cord, a struggle, a torment. Dostoevski's great soul is like
a battle-field, agitated, bloody, full of gnashing of teeth and
sobbing of the wounded, a field on which two irreconcilable
foes have met. Who will be the victor ? No one, never.
It is a hopeless, unending struggle. On whose side is the
poet ? We only know on whose side he wants to be. But
in those very moments when you most trust his Christian

488 The Nineteenth Century

humility, his wretchedness, and his chastity, —there suddenly
happens something unusual and evil somewhere in the dark,
dangerous corner of the author's psychological labyrinth
where he slowly, like a spider, entices and entangles the
inexperienced reader, so that you look, and hardly know
whether it is he or not, and whether it really is, or you only
imagine it to be, a terrible were- wolf, a double, or a wolf in a
sheepskin. Arid the great inquisitor whispers with scarcely
audible, insane laughter, which sends a chill through your
body, and through the meekness of the martyr flickers the
unlimited conceit of the devil, through the wretchedness
and chastity of the pious sufferer the lustful cruelty of the
devil.

To such monstrous insanity, to such epileptic fits of de-
monism has been changed the beneficent dualism of Pushkin,
the harmony of two worlds, the divine music of the spheres
that unite their voices to glorify the One. Such is the venge-
ance of the vilified pagan gods.

It would seem the limit was reached, and that one could
go no farther. But Lev Tolstoy has proved that one may
go farther on the same road, — into the abyss, into self- tor-
ment, into the terror of dualism, into the Titanic disorgani-
sation.

Dostoevski to his last breath suffered, thought, struggled,
and died, without finding what he sought most in life, —
spiritual peace. Lev Tolst6y no longer seeks or struggles,
or, at least, he wishes to assure himself and others that he
has nothing to struggle for, nothing to seek. This calm,
this silence and petrifaction of a whole subdued world, which
once was free and beautiful, but from the present standpoint
of its creator is to its very depths pagan and criminal, a world
which majestically evolved itself before us in Anna Kartnin
and War and Peace, — that tranquillity of The Kingdom of
God produces a more disquieting, a more oppressive im-
pression than the sanguinary struggle, contrition, sobs, and
eternal agony of Dostoevski. Of course, Lev Tolstoy did
not suddenly, and not without painful efforts, reach the final
tranquillity, the final victory ever the pagan world. But

Dmitri Sergydevich Merezhk6vski 489

even in War and Peace and Anna Karenin we are present
at a very strange phenomenon: two elements there meet,
without running together, like two streams of one river.
Where paganism is, all is life and passion, luxury and ardour
of physical sensations. Outside of good and evil, — as if good
and evil had never existed, — the poet expresses with infinite
truthfulness, with a childish and divine inability of being
ashamed, of hiding the nakedness of his heart, a thirsty, un-
satisfiable love for everything mortal and transitory, — a love
for this great billowing ocean of matter, for everything which
from the Christian standpoint ought to appear as vain and
sinful, — for powerful physical health, for country, glory,
woman, and children.

Here is the whole gamut of physical pleasures, and they
are told with fearless openness, such as has never been in
any other literature : the sensation of muscular strength, the
charm of field labour in the fresh air, the gentleness of a
child's sleep, the intoxication with the first games, with the
mirth of youthful banquets, with the tranquil manliness in
sanguinary battles, with the speechlessness of eternal Na-
ture, with the bracing cold of Russian snows, with the aro-
matic warmth of the deep summer grass.

Here is the whole gamut of physical pain, told with the
same inexorable candour, which sometimes rises to cynical
coarseness and shamelessness, — all the terrors of pain, be-
ginning with the inhuman cries of a beloved woman, dying
in the agony of childbirth, up to the terrible, crushing sound,
when the spine of the horse racing in the hippodrome is
broken. What a terror, what an intoxication of unlimited
sensuality !

How could he himself, how could others believe in the icy,
reflective Christianity, and how did they not recognise in
him a great, hidden pagan ? This paganism is proclaimed
in all the best productions of Tolst6y by all the voices of the
human flesh, which is fresh and joyous in the baby in its
mother's embrace, covered with the sweat of the agony and
half rotten on the terrible bed of Ivdn Ilich, blooming and
lusty in Anna Kare*nin, and racked and bloody under the

490 The Nineteenth Century

knives of the surgeons on the operating tables of the military
hospitals. Flesh everywhere, the pagan soul of flesh, the
one of the two struggling souls of which Goethe sings:

"Die eine halt in derber Liebeslust
Sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organen."

But in these very productions there come also to the sur-
face insipid and offensive parts that are connected by no
inner tie with the artistic woof of the production, as if writ-
ten by a different man. Such are the murderous sophistry
of Pierre Bezukhov, and the childishly clumsy and unnatural
Christian regenerations of Konstantfn Levin. In these dead
pages the mighty carnal life, which had just been welling
up in a stream, suddenly becomes stark and frozen. The
very language which had reached Pushkin's simplicity and
clearness, the greatest in Russian literature, abruptly changes :
as though a gloomy ascetic took vengeance upon him for
his recent candour, his un-Christian luxury and audacity,
with which but a moment ago had been described the tor-
ments and pleasures of sinful flesh. The ascetic unsparingly
violates the language, breaks, maims, stretches out, and
forces into the Procrustean bed towering, intricate syllog-
isms. " Two souls," that were united in Pushkin, that
struggled in Gogol, Gonchar6v, Turgenev, and Dostoevski,
for ever abandon each other in Tolst6y, so that the one does
not see, nor hear, nor answer the other.

We are at present past our suffering, we have become
accustomed to all monstrosity and dissonance, or else we
certainly should have felt the barbarity and unseemliness
of the artist who, in killing himself and blasphemously
treading on God's gift within himself, publicly recants the
best of his productions as a crime : * ' What is it you admire
in Anna Kartnin?" says he to the people: "do you not
know it is a debauch, a pagan nastiness of my soul ? " The
weakness of the great artist lies in his unconsciousness, be-
cause he is a pagan not of the bright, heroic type, but of the
dark, elementary, barbarous type, the son of ancient Chaos, a

Dmitri Sergyeevich Merezhkovski 491

blind Titan. The small meek one came and placed a cun-
ning trap for the great one, — the terror of death, the terror
of pain, — and the blind Titan was caught; the meek one
enmeshed him with the finest nets of moral sophisms and
Galilean wretchedness, and he overcame and vanquished
him. A few more agonising convulsions, desperate struggles
and outbursts, — and everything was for ever silenced and
dead, — there began the tranquillity of The Kingdom of God.
Only rarely, amidst monkish hymns and prayers, among icy,
Puritanic discourses about the use of tobacco, about the
brotherhood of the nations, about corporal punishment and
chastity, are heard in the depth of depths a subterranean din
and hollow thunderclaps: it is the voice of the blind Titan,
of indomitable Chaos, — of the pagan love of physical life and
pleasures, of the pagan terror of physical pain and death.

Lev Tolst6y is the antipode, the complete opposite and
negation of Pushkin in Russian literature. And, as often
happens, opposites deceive the superficial observers by their
external resemblances. Both in Pushkin and in our Lev
Tolstoy there is oneness, equilibrium, peace. But Pushkin's
oneness is based on the harmonious union of two worlds;
the oneness of Tolstoy is based on the complete disunion,
disruption, and violence, committed against one of the two
equally great, equally divine elements. Pushkin's calm
and tranquillity witness to a fulness of life; Lev Tolstoy's
calm and tranquillity witness to a petrified immobility, to
a deadening of the whole world. In Pushkin the thinker
and artist are welded into one being; in Lev Tolst6y the
thinker despises the artist, and the artist does not care for
the thinker. Pushkin's chastity presupposes passion sub-
ject to the feeling of divine moderation; Lev Tolst6y's
chastity flows from a desperate ascetic negation of love for
a woman. Pushkin's hope, like Peter the Great's, was Rus-
sia's participation in the universal life of the spirit, in uni-
versal civilisation ; but for that participation neither Pushkin
nor Peter denied the native element, the peculiarities of the
Russian spirit. Lev Tolst6y, an anarchist without violence,
preaches the amalgamation of the warring nations into a

492 The Nineteenth Century

universal brotherhood ; but for that brotherhood he renounces
love of country, — that jealous tenderness that filled the
hearts of Pushkin and Peter; and with unsparing haughti-
ness despises those peculiar, for him too impassioned, pagan
features of the separate nations, which he would like to
weld like the living colours of the rainbow into one white,
dead colour — into a cosmopolitan abstraction.

It is significant that the greatest of Tolstoy's productions
discrowns that last incarnation of the heroic spirit in history,
which for good reasons had an irresistible charm for all those
who in the democracy of the nineteenth century had pre-
served a spark of the Promethean fire, — Byron, Goethe,
Pushkin, and even L,ermontov and Heine. Napoleon, the
Delphic god of strength, anger, and glory, ' * that wondrous
man, the messenger of Providence, the fateful executor of
the nameless order, that vanished king, vanished like a
dream, like the shadow of the dawn," is transformed in
Tolst6y not even into the nihilist Raskolnikov, not even into
one of the monstrous devils of Dostoevski, who are still sur-
rounded with the aureole of terror, but into a puny, low-born
parvenu, a self-satisfied and prosaic bourgeois, perfumed
with eau-de-Cologne, with fat calves, a pusillanimous and
coarse-souled French shopkeeper, into a comic general Bona-
parte of the Moscow chap-books. That is where the last
step into the abyss has been reached, when it is not possible
to go any farther, for here the spirit of the mob, the spirit
of triumphant vulgarity blasphemes the Divine Spirit, the
sanctity of fate, the beneficent and awful appearance of the
hero. The most insinuating and modern of all the devils,
the devil of equality, the devil of the small and numberless,
whose name is Legion, has possessed the last great artist, the
blind Titan, in order to proclaim with his thunderous voice
to the whole world: "Behold, here is your hero, your god,
— he is as small as we, as vulgar as we ! ' '

Everybody has understood Tolst6y, everybody has ac-
cepted that watchword of the mob! Not Pushkin, but Tol-
stoy is the representative of Russian literature before the
masses of the universe. Tolst6y, the victor over Napoleon,

Dmitri Sergyeevich Merezhkovski 493

is himself a Napoleon of the numberless democratic army of
the small, the miserable, the lamenting, and the crushed.
They dispute with Tolstoy, they hate and fear him : this is a
sign that his fame is alive and growing. Pushkin's fame is
becoming ever more academic and distant, ever more unin-
telligible to the crowd. Who disputes with Pushkin, who
in Europe knows of Pushkin more than his name? We
learn him by heart on our school-benches, and his verses ap-
pear to us as cold and unnecessary for active Russian life as
the choirs of the Greek tragedies or the formulas of higher
mathematics. The most inaccessible and mysterious of all
the books is called the book of the vulgar, the * * Vulgate. ' '
Pushkin has become the Vulgate of Russian literature.
Everybody is ready to honour him with dead lips, with dead
laurels, — who honours him with his soul and spirit? The
crowd purchases in the acknowledgment of the great the
right of ignoring them, and avenges its too noble enemies
by a memorial plate in the academic Pantheon, and by
oblivion in fame. Who would believe that this god of the
teachers of Russian literature is not only more alive, more
modern, but, from the standpoint of bourgeois vulgarity,
even more dangerous, more audacious than I^ev Tolst6y ?
Who would believe that the irreproachably aristocratic
Pushkin, the singer of the Bronze Rider, the nursling of his
old nurse Arina, is nearer to the heart of the Russian people,
than the herald of universal brotherhood, the merciless
Puritan in the sheepskin coat of the Russian peasant ?

To what extent the heroic side of Pushkin's poetry is not
understood and despised, is evident from the fact that two of
the greatest of Pushkin's admirers, Gogol and Dostoevski,
as if by common agreement, do not attach the slightest im-
portance to it. However strange it may be, if we leave out
of consideration the text-books and the dead academic recog-
nition, Pushkin, the only bard of the only hero in the country
of I^ev Tolstoy and of Dostoevski, in the country of Russian
nihilism and Russian democracy, is a forgotten bard of a
forgotten hero.

INDEX,

Abre*k, its definition, 105
Aksdkov, S. T., biographical

sketch and extract, 216 seq.;

and see 19, 236
Alexander I., and his period, 5;

his liberalism, 12, 16; and see

240

Alexander II. and his period, 4, 5
Alexis Mikhdylovich, 40, 239
American Constitution and Alex-
ander I., 12
American War and Karamzin,

32

Analysis, in literature, 20; in
f Dostoevski, 21
Anna Karenin, 5, 391 seq.; and

see L. N. Tolstdy
Arina Rodi6novna, Pushkin's

nurse, 122, 493
Art for art's sake, in literature,

1 6, 20; criticised by Pisarev,

386 seq.

Baratynski, E. A., Pushkin's in-
fluence on, 17; biographical
sketch and extracts, 149 seq.

Bdtyushkov, K. N., estimate of,
13 seq.; biographical sketch
and extracts, 73 seq.; and see
16, 81

Beecher-Stowe, Russian, 297

Belles-lettres, peculiar course of,
in Russia, 6 seq.

Bestuzhev, A. A., biographical
sketch and extract, 102 seq.;
and see 4

Boborykin, 5

Boris Godun6v, by Pushkin, 143
seq.; and see 16

Bowring, Sir John, not the first
translator from the Russian, v

Boydn, 70

Bronze Rider, The, Peter the
Great so called, 123, 493

ByeKnski, V. G., and the Nat-
ural School, 4, 19; and Kolts6v,
176; biographical sketch and
extract, 205 seq.; and see 5, 6,
9, 186, 389, 492

Bylinas, by A. K. Tolst6y, 246

Byron, his influence, on Russian
literature, 8, 10, 16, 17; on
Pushkin, 16; on Kozl6v, 68;
on ly^rmontov, 155

Byzantine period, 18

Catherine II., 12, 239
Censorship, and literature, 6;

after 1848, 20; and see 303
Chekhov, A. P., biographical

sketch and extract, 459 seq.;

and see 5

Chernyshe'vski, 5, 389
Church-Slavic, and Shishk6v, 12;

and Karamzin, 28
Cloak, The, prototype of later

novels, 19
Comedy, Griboye*dov's, 17; and

see Griboyedov, Gdgol
Cosmopolitanism of the newer

Russian literature, 23
Crime and Punishment, 5; and

see Dostoevski

Crimean War and literature, 5
Criminals, portrayed in literature,

21 ; and see Dostoevski
Critics, evolution of, 5; and see

Byelinski, Dobroly&bov, Me-

rezhkdyski, Pisarev
Culture in nineteenth century, 7

Danile*vski, 22

Dead Souls, 4, 18; and see Gdgol

Death, early, of literary men, 6

495

496

Index

Decembrist conspiracy, marking
an epoch, 5; and Rylye"ev, 86;
and see 15, 102

De*lvig, A. A., Pushkin's in-
fluence on, 17; predecessor
of Kolts6v, 18: biographical
sketch and extracts, 120 seq.

Democracy, Russian, defined, 9;
in the forties, 20, 21; Dosto£v-
ski's, 21 ; and Nekrdsov, 22

Democratic critics, their effect
on poetry, 4

Democratisation of Russian so-
ciety, 9

Demon, The, 17; and see Ler-
montov

Derzhdvin, 12, 16

Desyatina = various land meas-
ures, from 3-5 acres, passim

Didacticism passing away, 23

Disenchantment in Russian liter-
ature, TO seq.

Dmitriev, and Karamziu, 27; and
see 1 6, 176, 208

Dobrolyubov, N. A., and Obld-
mov, 9; biographical sketch
and extract, 271 seq.; and see
5, 6, 389

Dolgoruki, I. M., 16

Dolgoruki, Princess, 68

Domostrdy, 238

Dostoevski, F. M., estimate of,
21 ; biographical sketch and ex-
tract, 322 seq.; and see 4, 5, 19,
81, 296

Drama, Ostr6vski's, 22, 369 seq.;
Chekhov's, 459; and see Comedy

Eighteenth century in litera-
ture, 12

Eighties, characterisation of pe-
riod since, n

Emancipation of serfs, due to
literary propaganda, 6; and
Turge"nev, 21

England, 73 seq.

English, literature compared with
Russian, 3; aristocracy com-
pared with Russian nobility,
8; and Russian literary styles,
13; people and Karamzin, 32

Enthusiasm, in Russian litera-
ture, 8; of Russian youths, 10

Evgeni Onyegin, 16, 17; and see
Ptishkin

Fables and Kryl6v, 14, 41 seq.
Family Chronicle, The, 19; and

see Aksakov
Fathers and Sons, 4, 8, 9; and see

Turgenev

Fet, 4, 17, 391 ; and see Shenshin
Fifties, the, 4
Filare*t, 40
Flaubert, 484

Folktales, naturalism in, 18
Fon-Vizin, 27

Forties, the novelists of the, 4
Forty years, apogee reached by

literary men at, 6
France, its influence on Russian

literature, 19
French, and Russian literary

styles, 13; realism, compared

with Russian, 20

Gaj, 241

Garshin, V. M., biographical
sketch and extract, 443 seq.;
and see 6

German, Romanticism in Russia,
8; influence, 15, 19; philosophy
in the forties, 20

Gertsen, A. I., biographical
sketch and extract, 236 seq.;
estimate by Dobrolyubov, 272
seq.; and see 242

GHnka, F. N., 78 seq.

Gnye*dich, 14

Goethe, 492

G6gol, N. V., novelist of the
forties, 4; obscuring Pushkin,
16; estimate of, 18 ; marks
end of older writers, 20 ; com-
pared with Tolst6y, 21 ; and Nar-
ye"zhny, 49; biographical sketch
and extracts, 185 seq.; and
Byelinski, 206 seq.; and Tur-
glnev, 281; and Dostoevski,
323; estimate of, by Merezh-
k6vski, 483 seq.; and see 4, in,
156, 206, 217, 310, 369, 379

Gonchar6v, I. A., estimate of,
21 ; biographical sketch and
extract, 259 seq.; and Dobrol-
yiibov, 271 seq.; estimate, of, by
Merezhk6vski, 484 seq.; and
see 4, 9, 339

G6rki, M., 5, 23; and see Pyesh-
kbv

Government and progress, 10

Index

497

Gray's Elegy and Zhuk6vski,
54

Griboye"dov, A. S., estimate of,
17; biographical sketch and
extract, 92 seq.; and see 4, 9

Grigor6vich, D. V., and peasant
in literature, 5; biographical
sketch and extract, 296 seq.

Hamlets in Russian life, 21
Hegel, his influence on Russian

literature, 19; and Byelinski,

206

Heine, 492
Hero of our Time, 17; and see

Lermontov
Herzen, see Gertsen
History and Karamzin, 27

Iliad in Russian, 14
Intelligence Comes to Grief, 17;

and see Griboyedov
Italian poetry, in Russian, 14
Ivan III., 40, 112
Ivan IV., 40, 2465^.
Izmdylov, A* B., biographical

sketch and extracts, 46 seq.;

and see 14

Jefferson, Thomas, and Alexander
L, 12

Journey from St. Petersburg to
Moscow, 12

Juvenal, Nekrdsov called the Rus-
sian, 347

Karamzin, N. M., compared with
Pushkin, 3; and Shishk6v, 4;
and literary style, 13; biograph-
ical sketch and extracts, 27 seq.;
and see 5, 12, 14-16, 55, 81, 208,
217, 240

Khomyak6v, A. S., and Slavo-
philes, 19; biographical sketch
and extracts, 229 seq.; and see
236, 259

Kolts6v, A. V., estimate of, 18;
biographical sketch and ex-
tracts, 176; and see 22, 120, 361

Korole"nko, V. G., biographical
sketch and extracts, 436; and
see 5, 468

Kozl6v, I. I., biographical sketch
and extracts, 67 seq.

VOL. II.— 32.

Kryl6v, I. A., biographical sketch
and extracts, 41 seq.; and see
14, 16

La Fontaine and Kryl6v, 14

Lazhe"chnikov, I. I., biographical
sketch and extract, in seq.;'
and see 4

Le"rmontov, M. Y., estimate of,
17; biographical sketch and ex-
tracts, 155 seq.; compared with
Ogare*v, 242; and Dobrolyubov,
272 seq.; estimate of, by Merezh-
k6vski, 484 seq.; and see 3, 4,
6,^123

Levitov, A. I., biographical sketch
and extract, 417 seq.; and see

22

Lewis, W. D., first translator into
English from the Russian, y

Literary language and Karam-
zin, 13

Literature and progress, 10

Little-Russian authors, 18, 49, 185

Lyapun6v, 240

Lyceum at Tsdrskoe-Sel6, 7

Marlinski, see Bestuzhev
Masonic societies, 12, 27
Maturity, early, of literary talent,

6
Mdykov, A. N., biographical

sketch and extracts, 339 seq.;

criticised by Pisarev, 386 seq.;'

and see 4, 17
Mdykov, V. I., 339
Memoirs of a Huntsman, and

liberation of serfs, 6; and see

Turgenev

Merezhk6vski, D. S., and didacti-
cism, 23; biographical sketch

and extract, 482 seq.
Merzlyak6v, 16
Middle class, and culture, 8; in

literature, 22
Moscow, circles in the forties,

19; merchant class, 22, 369
Murave"v, 73

Nddson, S.Y., biographical sketch
and extracts, 457 seq.; and see
6

Napoleon, in Russian literature,
63 seq.; and see 14 seq., 492

498

Index

Narye*zhny, V. T., biographical
sketch and extract, 4^ seq.; and
seeiS

Natural School, and Byelinski, 4 ;
and G6gol, 186; defined by Bye-
linski, 206 seq.; and see 18

Naturalism in Russian literature,

; is

Negation, in Russian literature,

5, 8; and Tolst6y, 21
Nekrdsov, N. A., his influence on

poetry, 4; and democracy, 22;
biographical sketch and ex-
tracts, 347 seq.; and see 120,

234, 361, 365

Neledinski, 16

Nicholas I., literature under, 3, 5;
and reaction, 20; and Slavophil-
ism, 240 seq.; and see 240

Nihilism denned, by Turg£nev,
283 seq.; by Merezhk6vski, 485

Nikitin, Afanasi, 114

Nikitin, I. S., biographical sketch
and extracts, 361 seq.; and see

6, 22

Nobility and culture, 7
Novel, the Russian, 17, 18
Novelists, of the forties, 4; of the

people, 22
N6vikov, 27

Oblbmov, as a type of Russians,

9; and see Gonchardy
Ogare"v, N. P., biographical

sketch and extracts, 242 seq.;

and see 236
Optimism in Russian literature,

448
Ostr6vski, A. N., biographical

sketch and extract, 369 seq.;
„ and see 22
Ozerov, 12, 241

Pan, a little-Russian (and Polish)
word = Mr., 49 seq.

Panslavism, 238 seq.; and see
Sla vophilism

Peasant, in literature, 5; in Tur-
ge*ney's sketches, 20; and Bye-
linski, 213 seq.; and Uspe*nski,
408 seq.; and see 176

People, its definition, 22 seq.

Periods, in literature, 3 seq.; by
reigns, 5

Pessimism, in the forties, 20; and
Baratynski, 149

Peter the Great, estimate of, by
Merezhk6vski, 483 seq.; and see
7, 18, 40, 64, 123, 341

Philosophy, its weakness in Rus-
sian literature, 9

Pisarev, D. I., biographical
sketch and extract, 385 seq.;
and see 6, 9

Pisemslvi, A. F., biographical
sketch and extract, 310 seq.;
and see 4, 22

Pleshche"ev, A. N., biographical
sketch and extracts, 365 seq.

Poetry, Zhuk6vski's conception
of, 55J and see $

Politics and literature, 6, n

Pol6nski, Y. P., biographical
sketch and extracts, 303 seq.;
and see 4, 17

Pomyal6vski, and peasant in lit-
erature, 5

Populists, 10

Potdpenko, I. N., biographical
sketch and extract, 448 seq.;
and see 5

Progress, carried by youths, 9
seq.; and Turge'nev, 20; of
Russian literature in nineteenth
century, 23

Protest an important note in
Russian literature, 8

Pud, measure of weight = about
36 Ibs., passim

Pushkin, A. S., and Byron, 10;
estimate, 16 seq.; renewal of
his cult, 17; and naturalism, 18;
and Merezhk6vski, 23; and
Bdtyushkov, 73; his death, and
Le"rmontov, 156; biographical
sketch and extracts, 122 seq.;
and Dobrolyubov, 272 seq.; es-
timate of, by Merezhk6vski,
483 seq.; et passim

Pyeshkov, A. M., biographical
"sketch and extract, 467 seq.

Radishchev, 12

Reaction, periods of, in literature,

ii ; after 1848, 20
Realism and Turgenev, 20
Revizdr, The, 188; and see Gdgol
Romanticism, and novels, 4;

early, in Russia, 8; and Zhu-

Index

499

Romanticism — Continued.
k6vski, 14, 54; and Pushkin,
1 6; and G6gol, 19; and Best 6-
zhev, 102; and Byelinski, 207;
and Turg£nev, 280

Russian language, 13, 28

Russian literature compared with,
English, 3

Ryeshe*tnikov, 22

Rylye"ev, K. F., and Decembrist
conspiracy, 15; Pushkin's in-
fluence on, 17; biographical
sketch and extracts, 86 seq.;
and see 14, 102

Salty k6v, M. B., and satire, 22;
and Dobrolyubov, 272 seq.;
biographical sketch and ex-
tract, 379 seq.; and Pisarev,
391; and see 386

Satire and Salty k6v, 22; and see
Saltykbv

Scepticism in the forties, 20

Schaden's school, 27

Schelling, his influence on Rus-
sian literature, 19, 205

Schools and culture, 7

Schopenhauer, 484

Scott, Sir Walter, his influence
on Russian novel, 4

Sentimentalism, 27

Seventies in literature, 22

Shakspere, his influence on
Pushkin, 16; and Karamzin,

31

Shchedrin, see Saltykdv
Shcherbdtov, 13, 27
Shebuyev, 240
Shenshin, A. A., biographical

sketch and extracts, 319 seq.
Shishk6v, his antiquated style,

4; and Church-Slavic, 12, 28;

and Aksdkov, 217
Slavophiles, their enthusiasm, 10;

studying customs, 22; defined

by Ge"rtsen, 237 seq.; and Os-

tr6vski 369; and see 13, 236,

484
Slavophilism due to German

philosophy, 19
Soilers, 10
Sons and fathers, 10
Styles of language, 12 seq.; and

see 5

Talent not concentrated, 9

Tasso and Bdtyushkov, 14, 73,
75 seq.

Tatishchev, 27

Theatre and Ostr6vski, 369

Theology and literature, Khom-
yak6v's, 230

Tolst6y, A. K., biographical
sketch and extracts, 245

Tolst6y, L. N., novelist of the
forties, 4 ; departing from real-
ity, 5 ; as negator, 9 ; estimate
of, 21 ; biographical sketch and
extracts, 391 seq. ; estimate of,
by Merezhk6vski, 483 seq. ;
and see 19, 8 1

Tolst6yists, 392

Tradition, absence of, in home
life, 7 ; in school, 8

Tsdrskoe-Selo, lyceum at, 7

Tugendbund in Russia, 15

Turge*nev, I. S., novelist of the
forties, 4; and emancipation of
the slaves, 6; a Westerner, 19;
estimate of, 20 seq. ; and style,
21 ; and Dobrolyubov, 272 seq.;
biographical sketch and ex-
tracts, 280 seq.; estimate of, by
Merezhk6vski, 484 seq.; and
see 9, 234, 303, 385

Tyutchev, F. I., biographical
sketch and extracts, 234; and
see 417

Uspe'nski, G. I., and peasant
in literature, 5; biographical
sketch and extract, 408 seq.;
and see 22, 428, 468

Uvdrov, Count S. S. (lived 1786-
1855), famous for his perfervid
loyalty to the throne, 241

Venevitinov, 17

Vyazemski, P. A., his literary

death, 4; biographical sketch

and extracts, 81 seq.

War and Peace •, 391 seq.; and see

L. N. Tolstby
Western ideals, in Russia, 7, 19;

and Turge"nev, 20
Word of I gor^s Armament, The,

modernised by Mdykov, 340

Index

Yazykov, N. M., Pushkin's in-
fluence on, 17; biographical
sketch and extract, 152 seg.

Young men, and school tradi-
tions, 7; in cultural movements,
9

Zag6skin, 240

Zhuk6vski, V. A., and Romanti-
cism, 14; biographical sketch
and extracts, 54 seq. ; and see
3, 16, 67, 68, 81, 152, 186

Zlatovratski, N. N., biographical
sketch and extracts, 427 seq. ;
and see 22, 468

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narrative, while preserving enough of incident and of detail to com-
plete the pictures of the periods and places selected. The main
text will be left in the language of the original authors.

The first group in the series will comprise four volumes devoted
to the literature illustrating the exploration, the conquest, and the
development of the territory of the West. The First Volume will
contain the story of " The Winning of the West," by Theodore
Roosevelt, and with the chronological narrative will present the
complete text of certain of the more dramatic and noteworthy inci-
dents in this very picturesque chronicle. The Second Volume will
present in like manner the consecutive narrative and the more note-
worthy incidents from "Astoria" and "Adventures of Captain
Bonneville," by Washington Irving, giving a chronicle of the ex-
plorations of the fur traders in the outposts from which their work
was done. The Third Volume, based upon Cooper's " Last of the
Mohicans," will present a romantic picture of the Indians and
hunters of the border. The Fourth Volume, based upon the ' ' Life
of Lincoln," by Noah Brooks, although dealing with a much later
period of time, tells of experiences of a boyhood and young man-
hood passed in these same pioneer surroundings.

Each volume contains illustrations and maps*
Per volume ... 75 cts. to $1.00 net

Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

PG Wiener, Leo (ed.)

3213 Anthology of Russian

W5 literature from the earliest

v.2 period to the present time